AS competition in the Wangaratta and District Cricket Association winds down for the Christmas break, and players look forward to when they can stride out to the middle for their club, it's also worth looking back to see the road behind.

Ovens Valley United Cricket Club has been in existence for six years, bringing in players from Gapsted and Whorouly, Myrtleford, all the way up the valley to Harrietville and Bright, and is finding its feet as a wide–ranging club.

"We've come out the other end of all that merging business and to have four senior teams this year for the first time indicates that we're doing things well," club president Tony Cuskelly said.

"What's really pleasing also is that every team is competitive – we've also got a couple teams sitting in the top four at the moment which is good.

"Over the last couple of years we're starting to see the fruits of our labour in terms of juniors coming into seniors.

"Five or six years ago we weren't really sure if we were going to have juniors – now that we do, you start to believe in 'growing it organically', if that makes sense."

Merging several clubs into a new entity offers questions around club identity and culture, questions Cuskelly said have been answered.

"We also looked at the culture of our club under the senior lens," he said.

"We really wanted to lift the bar with professionalism: the image of the team, making the club family friendly, getting all our uniform and logos and everything sorted to a point.

"It's an ongoing job with moving pieces, but we sort of think after six years, we're building a culture that we're proud of and that we believe that families would be happy to be a part of and to participate in."

Cuskelly said plans were being drawn up to make Myrtleford one of the premier places to play cricket in the North East, welcoming both players and families.

"We want to be one of those clubs in the WDCA that people enjoy to come to, and to play against as well," he said.

"We're looking at a master plan at the moment, with respect to our grounds and our social clubs and things like that so that we're in a good place to launch into grants and so forth.

"We're conscious of continuing to develop our home base as well, just forever improving cricket nets.

"We're in the market for potentially new rollers, new mowers, that type of thing.

"We want our facility to be a mirror image of Lords (Mansfield), the Gardens (Benalla), Hargreaves (Yarrawonga) – we want to get our facilities into that position, and certainly our intention is to host some Country Week games as well early in January.

"Whilst we take our cricket seriously, we also want the club to be very social.

"The next challenge now is to become far more family–oriented as well, with partners and children."

The club will continue working in the background to secure grant funding for facilities its players deserve, while the cricketers do what they do best across every grade.

The WDCA competition kicks back on Saturday, January 8, with OVU A grade cricketers to take on Beechworth.