PANTEG Cricket Club is looking to encourage more youngsters to take up the sport as they unveiled their new practice nets this week.
The club had applied for funding from Sport Wales to replace their old nets, which were “a bit dated.”
And through Sport Wales’ progress grant, the club was successful, and was able to open the new facility on Thursday evening.
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“We were encouraged by Cricket Wales to apply for it as they knew our old facility was in pretty bad shape,” said Richard Jeffries, chairman of Panteg Cricket Club.
“It improves our ability to provide cricket for the community. We have more juniors and we now have a women’s team and our senior men’s team, as well as inviting local schools to come down and use it.
“We can already see that it will make such a big difference to the club. It brings this practice facility up to the standards of the rest of the ground. It’s something that we can be proud of.”
Jack Mayers, club secretary, said: “The nets that were here before were a bit dated.
“It meant that our youth teams weren’t able to train as we wanted them to – they were too low.
“We wanted to bring the nets up to the standard of the rest of this beautiful ground. It’s something that needed doing.
“Since the most recent lockdown there has been a bit of a bounce back with people wanting to get out and play. It’s about increasing participation.
“We are part of a programme called All Stars and Dynamos – which are national schemes where children can come and play cricket and are given a bat and kit.
“There’s no better way to spend a Saturday or a Sunday than here.”
Sean Clarke, Panteg CC’s youth co-ordinator, said: “One of the bigger issues we had with the nets was if we had bad weather in the week before, the old surface was not good enough.
“We were having to cancel sessions, and sometimes some of the juniors were going weeks without practicing.
“The other day we had about 60 juniors down here. We’ve gone from having about 15 to having anywhere up to 80 coming along. We’ve gone from two coaches to 12.
“We’re really expanding so it’s really good to see.”
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