Cycling-loving cricketers raise almost £2,500 for their club and a local charity

Fareham & Crofton CC players took on a week-long challenge to cycle around 1,500 km - the combined distance the club’s 1st XI would have travelled from their Bath Lane HQ to every away County League Division 1 game and back in 2020.

As it was, the group cycled around 1,700 km - just over 1,000 miles.

And not all of those miles were clocked up in Hampshire, as Australian James Heiniger took to the streets of Brisbane to take part.

Heiniger has spent the last two summers playing for Fareham, but was not due back for a third year in 2020 as his visa had expired.

Half of the cash raised will be donated to the club, with the other half donated to The Moving On Project, which provides counselling and mental health services for children and young people aged 11-25 in the Fareham and Gosport area.

Fareham chairman Charlie Stubbs estimates it costs around £40,000 to run the club, so all monies will be gratefully received.

His club have recently been awarded two grants totalling around £17,000.

They received a Small Business grant of £10,000 from Fareham Borough Council, and around £7,000 from the ECB.

‘It wasn’t just a case of applying and getting the money from the ECB,’ said Stubbs. ‘You had to justify all your costs, put them all down on a spreadsheet and send it off.

‘I don’t think clubs like us would be in a good place if we couldn’t have got those grants. We would have found life really difficult.

‘We would have had to do a lot of fundraising, and it’s very hard to do that when you can’t all get together.’