Former Southern Highlands cricketer, Dean Roxburgh, has spent the last few months working to get the new MBK United Cricket Club off the ground.

The club, Roxburgh said, will not field another run-of-the-mill side, but will focus on helping teenage players make the adjustment from age group cricket to senior cricket.

"I see a lot of kids in grade cricket around the area at the moment who are batting outside where they should be or bowling outside where they should be," Roxburgh said.

"I got together with a mate and said I want to create a side full of young players around 15 or 16.

"I put a few feelers out there to see what I could get sponsor-wise to help the club out, and the response from around town has been amazing."

MBK United will have a first grade side, in which Roxburgh himself will play as captain-coach, and an Under 14s side.

The idea is to help expose young players to the demands of senior cricket sooner, and in so doing help keep them in the local system.

Due to a lack of opportunities, many of Goulburn's best young cricketers have decided to play for Canberra clubs in recent years.

This exodus has left the local competition with dwindling numbers and a much smaller amount of talent coming into the senior grades than was the case even ten years ago.

"We just want to bring a little bit of professionalism back to Goulburn like it was when Mik Webber, Brad Smith, and Dane Stevenson were here 10 or 15 years ago," Roxburgh said.

"It was some of the best country cricket I've ever been involved in. Those guys were quality cricketers, and that's what we need to bring back."

The proposal, he added, has been enthusiastically taken up by a number of community groups around town.

Roxburgh spoke to several clubs in the Goulburn District Cricket Association, all of whom, he said, were thrilled to have an avenue of retaining and developing local talent.

Similarly, the MBK Club itself, which also fields teams in the local Southern Tablelands Football Association competitions, was "over the moon" with Roxburgh's idea.

But, most importantly for the veteran, it was well-received by his son, Isaac, and a number of other young cricketers.

So well-received, in fact, that Roxburgh already has the numbers needed to pull together a side.

"I've only got to press a button and we'd be ready to go," he said.

In order to help acclimate the teenagers in the side to the demands of senior cricket, they will train with some of the senior players once a week and have individual programs put in place to help develop their skills and fitness.

The addition of the MBK side, GDCA president Shane Munroe said, was proof that the association's focus on expanding the local competitions was paying off.

"My goal from the start was the more teams, the better, to make Goulburn cricket stronger," he said.

"We've had enquiries from all over the place. There were 10 teams in this year's competition, I wouldn't be surprised to see 14 next year."

He added that Roxburgh and the MBK will have "all my support" during the 2021/22 season.

"We don't want to be losing guys to Canberra," he said. "We want to build the strongest competition we can here."

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