#9 Team White - can’t play without them!

There is no doubt in my mind that my playing game improved when I started to umpire! It was a while ago now and my foray into umpiring wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience but I’m glad I persisted and have my ‘C Award’ to my name.

As a Coach I am very respectful of umpires: always drumming into players, especially youngsters, that you cannot play the game without Team White and encouraging them to pick up a whistle themselves. I take a very dim view of players complaining about umpires or officials. My standard answer to players commenting that they lost a game because of the umpiring is normally ‘we should have never have let the game be so close that anyone else could potentially influence the result’.

That’s not to say I always agree with umpires’ decisions or their interpretations of the rules though! Netball is a competitive game - we keep score and Netballers are by large a passionate lot, so there is always bound to be some issues, somewhere along the line!

Regular readers will know that I returned to play recently after 3 years on the sidelines due to injury. What has struck me most about my return is how much the game has changed. I don’t play at any great standard but the league we play in does need ‘C’ Award umpires to officiate games. It’s MUCH more physical, I feel a lot more contact is ‘let go’ and umpires are allowing ‘contest’ much more frequently.

On enquiry to umpires- some I know and many I don’t, there has been no official rule changes, clarification or advice around these rules during my time out.

Unfortunately and I am making some admission here, I got my first ever warning on a netball court recently! I am ashamed, particularly as it was in front of team mates who i often coach and are of an age where they are impressionable. In all honestly though I do believe three years ago there would have been a call, I wouldn’t have been impeded when I took the shot and such blatant unsportsmanlike contact wouldn’t have been let go.

It’s also a complete coincidence that the umpire involved has umpired two of my teams matches so far this season. The only two games we have lost.

My concern is that netball is being broadcast heaps more and is much more accessible (a good thing obvs!) but that is influencing viewers’ own games - it’s my view and I am sticking to it!

I’ve played GS more or less 90% of the time since my return and I have no other explanation for the bumps and bruises that my fellow county league players, thinking they’re Katrina Rore or Courtney Bruce, impact on me! I have news for you my opposite numbers: you are not! You cannot do a Geva roll without contacting, you can’t squat like Rore and you don’t train day in day out to ‘fly’ like Bruce! Equally, my stats are not Jo Harten- esq - but that’s just damaging my pride rather than my body!!!

It will be interesting, particularly in a couple of seasons’ time, to see if ‘grass roots’ or intermediate netball is seeing an increase in ‘serious’ injuries like ACLs and Achilles tears. I believe we will and I believe it will be down to the additional physicality of the game.

I don’t have a solutions. I’m not sure there is one. I’m not even sure it’s agreed that there is a problem!

The standard ‘best practice’ for all levels of competition is that umpires are actually volunteers. They may be paid expenses for travel, accommodation etc but they are not actually paid for their skills and time actually umpiring. Depending on the standard being umpired these volunteers have a high costs to do what they do: Equipment, qualifications, kit, CPD, travel not to mention the time they dedicate to training, fitness, reviews. For me, this is just so wrong. At the highest level we have amateurs officiating professionals.

Professional Netballers’ injuries, the plight of our ‘amateur’ top international umpires and the physical and mental stresses of elite players are all thoughts for another day!

The bottom line is that netball cannot take place without umpires. 99% of them are there for the very best of reasons and they deserve the respect that often I’m afraid they do not get. Lets make it a New Years’ Resolution to be more appreciative of #TeamWhite !

#8 Great Expectations

I have a love / hate relationship with social media. I wouldn’t have been as successful as I was / have been in getting new participants into netball, without it. That’s for certain.

But I also realise and am often left speechless by some of the downfalls!

Recently I have been reading (and sighing a lot) over netballers complaints / queries / concerns over various league and competition ‘ailments’ with almost daily demands for updates / solutions!

Concerns, mostly from local leagues or social set ups, amount from floodlight failures, moss on courts, weather cancellations, time it takes to cancel because of the weather, state of posts and toilet cleanliness. The list is quite seemingly endless and I have to be honest, if I was one of the army of (mostly) volunteers, up and down the country, reading this drivel, I  would tell the authors to poke it somewhere the sun doesn’t shine!

I never realised before that grass roots Netballers were such a needy lot!

Many of these concerns are completely out of organisers’ control and I really do wonder what planet these concerned parties live on!

Organisers are many things,  but I’ve yet to meet one who can successfully predict weather patterns, stop floodlight failures before they happen or carry screws in their pocket incase the post comes apart! (I mean, not even the professionals carry screws around - This years Fast5s event was evidence of this! ) 🤦🏽‍♀️

Many of these concerns lie at the feet of the facilities management ( schools, leisure centres, local authority courts etc) and believe me, netball facilities is a whole blog in itself! (Definitely to be written!)

Netball complainants are not writing Facebook posts and tagging the facilities in twitter posts though! (Not that it would probably make a difference!) they are not adding praise to their posts when something goes right either!

It’s the poor schmucks who are often court side well before everyone else, sweeping glass of the tarmac, picking up dog poo off the courts or switching on floodlights to make sure they are at full pelt  for when everyone else arrives, that get it in the neck!

I’ve written before about how we need to appreciate volunteers more and to a certain extent I am repeating myself here. However, I think there are more considerations to take from this pretty sad state of affairs.

Firstly, how we use social media in netball (in fact in general!) and who reads what we communicate!   Do we all, as proud Netballers have a responsibility to ensure our great game is not bought into disrepute? Would a seemingly harmless Facebook comment about the state of the courts on a particularly cold night, put off new to Netballers and perhaps steer them to the warmth of an indoor Zumba class or badminton court?

There is something to be said here for the league social media policy and examples they set themselves on social media platforms. (I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read umpire or scorer requests on league Facebook pages without a ‘please’ in sight!)

Secondly, being grateful for what we do have!

A long time ago now I coached and played in a local league in Sydney, Australia. Heffon Park has / had 16+ outdoor courts all with immovable posts so you could go and practice whenever you wanted.

I was and still am green with envy - you don’t get venues in the UK with 16 courts (or if you do I’ve never visited or even heard of them!) and even if there are I doubt very much you can rock up and use them for free! (Cost will be written about in that facilities blog I was talking about earlier!)

Now imagine how the participants we see through the Netball Development Trust’s (https://www.netballtrust.co.uk/ ) work feel looking at our courts? These are Netballers who may be playing in barefoot on mud or dust courts with chalk markings.

I guess it’s all a question of perspective!

I’ve made the point that we need to take care of our netball volunteers, because netball opportunities don’t happen without them!

For me, part of this, is making sure we use social media responsibility. When was the last time you read a ‘thank you’ post on your local league Facebook page or ‘what a great game thanks Southsea Scarlets’ on Twitter ?

Why not?

We’re very quick to take to social media when if all goes wrong on and around the netball courts, why not turn it around and be a leader in women’s sport and use social media for better  purposes?

Perhaps the revolution starts here!