#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!