Yarraville Club has long been admired for its success at senior level.
The Clubbers are a powerhouse of VTCA and have a three-peat of premierships in their sights this summer.
After a satisfying decade of dominance for the seniors, there was a key piece in the jigsaw puzzle missing, which needed to be addressed for the long term sustainability of the club.
Clubbers’ junior development officer Hussain Hanif told Star Weekly everyone talked about its success, but the reality is, the club was good at the top, but had no juniors coming through.
“We’re trying to get more juniors,” he said.
The Clubbers have become pioneers in a short space of time. Hanif has a background in junior development and working with people with disabilities in sport.
Aside from his commitment to boosting junior numbers, Hanif asked the Clubbers if they were interested in setting up an all-abilities cricket team. The Clubbers jumped at the chance to take the club to a new level, and pulled out all stops to make the project a success, providing transport, kits and coaching for the players.
The reaction to the new all-abilities team ha been overwhelming. The Clubbers could only enter two teams in the Melbourne All Abilities Cricket Association, but had a staggering 60 registered players travelling from as far as Geelong to be part of the team.
“I used to run programs in New Zealand for people with a disability,” Hanif said. “They have a league running here, so I said to the cricket club, we’ve got the opportunity to run something like this. We put the word out and there were people with a disability coming from everywhere wanting to play cricket.
“In the west, it’s kind of sad that we were the only club to put our hand up and say ‘alright, we’re going to do it’. They’ve got the opportunity to excel in the sport, where previously in the western suburbs, it was never provided.
“They can go on and play for Victoria and Australia as well.”
Even more astounding has been Yarraville Club’s results. The Clubbers are undefeated in both the Super League and the 10-over tonk.
They will host the Super League grand final against Skye at Hansen Reserve on February 28.
“It’s been phenomenal,” Hanif said. “We’ve played all over Victoria and we’ve come out on top quite convincingly in every game.”
Hanif is hoping all-abilities cricket in the west grows and that more clubs get involved in the future.
In the meantime, Yarraville Club has another premiership to chase in Super League.
They will go into the season decider as favourites with top 10 batsmen Damien Lee, Alex Skinner and Shaun Rayment on their side, along with star bowlers Christopher Quinn-Scheik and Jamie Smith.
“We should win it because we were undefeated during the season, but with cricket, you just don’t know what’s going to happen on the day,” Hanif said.
