#14 Role Models

I was watching the Vitality Netball Nations Cup recently, my toddler climbed on my lap, probably wondering what Mummy was shouting at! My 6 year old was buzzing around in the background, trying to ignore my explanations of good footwork ‘look Heidi, Jade Clarke landed 1-2!’.

It suddenly occurred to me that my daughters will never really know how lucky they are growing up with so many fabulous sporting female role models.

I had no where near the amount of sportswomen to look up to when I was growing up!

I remember cheering on Sally Gunnell at the Barcelona Olympics and the furore when Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean returned to the ice in the 90s. But there were no posters on my wall or regular interviews watched on TV.

I knew what was going on in the England Netball set up as I used to literally live for my Mum’s Netball Magazine coming through the letterbox! We’d never see Kendra Slowinski or Tracey Horton on TV or in the newspapers though!

I do remember The Sun sponsoring a County Team for the annual Inter-counties Tournament one year and they appeared in the paper (possibly not in the sports section though) showing off their netball knickers with The Sun logo emblazoned in them. I thought ‘how cool is that!? - how naïve was I!?!

My girls will have their pick of sports women posters to put on their walls - if they choose to do so! We have the England Netball team in Grazia, women footballers given exposure in traditionally male football magazines and world superstars like Serena Williams and Simone Byles smashing every glass ceiling that is thrown at them.

As well as exposure to female sporting greats, the attitude also seems to be changing which is overdue and very welcome! Gone are the days where women sports stars are sexualised in magazines, talked about in laughable tones or not taken seriously.

Don’t get me wrong, we still have a long way to go. But the tide is definitely turning!

We have professional Netballers for Heaven’s sake, never in my lifetime did I think I’d see the day!

I can’t help but be a tiny bit jealous to be honest!

Without meaning to be a pessimist I do worry about what happens when (and I believe it is a when, rather than an ‘if’) a female sporting icon loses her halo or lets it slip!

Tennis star Maria Sharapova admitted to failing a drugs test in 2016.

Recently retired World Cup winning Silver Fern Maria Falou is probably the closest Netball has got to ‘ a scandal’ with her support of her husbands homophobic views.

We have seen in men’s football enough ‘scandal’ to know the impact it can have.

Perhaps it is the way ‘the story’ is told rather than the ‘scandal’ itself.

For example former England Men’s footballer Paul Merson’s alcoholism and gambling addiction problems were recently written and broadcast about in a much more sympathetic and educational way compared to the headlines he endured in the 90s.

Women’s sport may have a chance to rewrite ‘scandal’ into more helpful and thoughtful pieces - although this means the tabloid press will have to come onboard! As I said earlier: there is still a long way to go!

I find it really exciting that Women’s sport has so much opportunity to change the sporting landscape in so many different ways - media and promoting our superstars as role models is just the tip of the iceberg. There are some great ‘trailblazers’ and anyone who listened to Claire Balding’s closing speech at the Netball World Cup in 2019 could not help to be moved, as well as inspired.

The Nations Cup could have been revered or ignored because of the earliness of the event in the 4 year netball cycle. World Champs New Zealand being part of the competition and the teams taking part by,  being in the top 5 in the world, rankings would have indeed helped. I don’t remember a competition, not even the QUAD series, being so popular, so early on in the cycle though. With the greatest of respect the England Roses were of a ‘reserve’ nature, so the sold out stadiums, Sky & YouTube coverage and ‘buzz’, not just in the netball community but outside that ‘bubble’, is even more extraordinary and hopefully a sign of things still to come.

The NGB must take some credit for that. It won’t be easy to continue and even improve on the momentum of the World Cup, particularly with what, arguably, could be viewed as a ‘lesser’ product without our Roses Superstars. The likes of Captain Natalie Haythornthwaite & rising Rose Amy Carter are certainly filling the space as awesome role models to the watching masses! Long May it continue!

#13 Nations Cup review

For me the stand outs for the England Roses were the sensational shooting capabilities (and ability to play over both shooting positions) of Ellie Cardwell and the emergence of Amy Carter, who frankly looked like she had been playing in the red dress for a lot longer than she has! 

A lot has been said about the start of a new 4 year netball cycle and when you consider we still, potentially, have the likes of Serena Guthrie, Jo Harten, Helen Housby and Geva Mentor (plus others!) coming back into the squad, the future is looking bright! 

The Nations Cup does highlight an ongoing concern for me, and that is who is, realistically, going to replace Geva Mentor? She’s gone on record to say that she wants a crack at the next Commonwealth Games and World Cup and, frankly, who would bet against that happening!?! 

But, she will retire at some point and I don’t see a natural successor emerging! 

Whatever defensive combination was played during the Nations Cup, however influential Stacey Francis is back in the Roses fold, we were exposed in every game, at some point or another. There was little consistency at the back. 

I wasn’t lucky enough to go to any of the games live this time round - but you could hear and feel the atmosphere through the telly box! Social media was awash with support and the players’ appreciation of the crowd’s efforts. The matches were live on Sky and YouTube, with Lisa Alexander commenting that netball has really grown in England, even since the World Cup. The sport continues to build momentum and the Nations Cup has refuelled the hunger and desire from the netball community! How exciting! 

Looking at the other nations involved, if NZ was worried about the retirement of Maria Falou - they needn’t have been! Ekinasio seems to have got even better with the responsibility of the Captaincy, Bailey Mes has been given a new lease of life, Selby-Rickett is playing with confidence and Wilson, oh my, what a player! 

The World Champs just looked a cut above everyone else and were not really troubled in terms of results. 

There really was only one winner to be honest. 

I was disappointed with South Africa - they can’t seem to just get that extra 1% to take them over the line in the close games. (Thankfully, in the last one!!) Karla Pretorious has a quiet series for me. I have a bit of a soft soft for Sigi Burger and would have liked to have seen her on court more. She offers something different to the other SA shooters and I really hope she has a great season for new side London Pulse to put herself into national contention. 

Jamaica have been touted as ‘back to their old selves’ and in terms of their ill discipline & consistency over 4 quarters, I agree! 

I’m not sure ‘back to their old selves’ is such a good thing anyway - they’ve not made a final or any inroads against the top sides in recent years. 

For me, they are too reliant on the long ball into Fowler - they couldn’t adapt when Shimona Nelson came off the bench - an absolute cracker of GS, in her own right. New coach Connie Francis has her work cut out, but as usual with Jamaica their strength is their unknown quantities and you always have to expect the unexpected! 

Away from the actual netball action I was thrilled to hear the dulcet tones of Aussie Head Coach Lisa Alexander on commentary. 

By her own admission she was there spying - and why not!?! Shows how much the Aussies are hurting right now and her desire & belief to be on top, once again! 

Her insight and knowledge is first class, she’s not afraid to be honest and her passion for all things Netball is infectious. What an amazing global ambassador of our great game! 

So, it’s now less than a month to the Vitality Netball Superleague and of the Netball Nations Cup was meant to quench our thirst, it succeeded! 

What I’m looking forward to most is the coverage Netball will get. Sky will broadcast games and hopefully will learn lessons from previous years as to which games to broadcast and when! 

We’ll see more newspaper column inches, photos and magazine articles about our players. They’ll be local TV coverage and hopefully national coverage too - I’m still surprised when I see netball featured on BBC Breakfast, but it’s becoming ‘the norm’ so shouldn’t be! 

All that attention can only be a good thing for our great game - bring it on! 

#12 Mummy Netballers

I feel I am a better all round person for becoming a Mum and I suspect many mums feel the same way. Perhaps it’s patience, tolerance or just a better understanding of what is really important! 

I believe I am also a better coach. I’m also a better Mum for being a Coach! There are a lot of transferable skills! 

Figures from my previous job also prove that I was far better at my Netball Development Community Coach role when I became a Mum. 

Am I a better netball player though? It’s a difficult one for me, regular readers will know, I only recently returned to playing  after 3 years of ACL injury & rehab. (Had a baby in that time too / I like life to be challenging!) Before that I was concentrating on my job & other coaching, so was never a regular partaker at training & only played ‘when desperate’! 

The reason I am writing about mummy Netballers is I am somewhat conflicted with my playing at the moment & that’s mainly down to being a mummy & childcare problems! 

As a Coach of a regional club side I expected commitment & if you fell short of expectations then you fell short of the team. Harsh maybe, but I was bought up around netball at a time where players didn’t book holidays during netball time , youngsters didn’t leave their squad half way through the season due to exam commitments & you came to training even when injured / pregnant/ ill. 

Oh how times change. 

My own rule came back to haunt me recently when I was dropped from the squad due to absence from training. The reason I was absent from training was that hubby was on a late shift & my two main trusted babysitters (Mum & Sister) were.......you guessed it, at netball. 

I was not happy!

I have not worked my arse off in prehab and rehab, lost nearly 4 stone and completed rounds and rounds of excruciatingly mind numbing, repetitive knee and leg strengthening exercises to be benched. Well, I wasn’t even benched to be fair - wasn’t even required. 

But, from my experience as a Coach, I could see that other players who were at training, might not be happy if I was named but hadn’t been at training. It’s a difficult one. As I say, conflicted! 

However, isn’t it about time more consideration was given to mums who want to start / return to sport when they have a child / children? We have a severe obesity problem in this country, not to mention other health problems, self esteem, domestic violence problems, social isolation - I’m not saying women playing sport solves these problems but Sport England data suggests it does no harm! I know first hand how Back to Netball and Walking Netball can change lives.

In my experience, an apology and ‘ I can’t come tonight, ‘Paul’ is working late / playing football / is going out’ has become commonplace. I’m not sure ‘Paul’ apologises for not being at football because Trish is at netball practice! I hope you get my drift!

We do seem to be better with such ‘returner’ programmes in netball and I suggest our NGB’s commitment to insight data is a factor in this. It really is industry-leading.

Later evening sessions are always popular as mums can put their kids to bed and have an hour of ‘me time’ at the local  sports centre or school. In my area there are also successful ‘Mums and Tots’ or ‘post natal’ Back to Netball sessions, so the barrier of childcare is taken away. We could be much better, across the country at this though, but at least we’ve made a start.

It seems things are progressing for Mothers at elite level too. Our Southern Hemisphere counterparts seem to eagerly support their mummy athletes and World Champion Silver Fern Casey Kopua is a prime example of this. One of my favourite media moments of the World Cup 2019 was Kopua being interviewed after the World Cup win, with toddler Maia in arms, licking sweat of her mum! Kopua later revealed she was 14 weeks pregnant at the time of winning gold.

In the UK we have Superleague players such as Liana Leota plying their trade as well as being a Mum. Sophie Candappa (Wasps) and Lauren Nichols (Loughborough Lightning) are both due to return to action next month after becoming mums during 2019. I really hope they document their mummy / netball journeys on their social media feeds - they are inspirational, trailblazers and a great example to young netball fans.

The latest This Girl Can campaign hi/lights the problems faced by mums who want to exercise. The problem needs solutions as well as awareness.

It’s the ‘intermediate’ netball mums that I think we need to do more for - the mums who are playing competitively when they find out they’re pregnant but need help to return! If nothing else it will stop a huge raft of women dropping out of netball altogether.

I’ve coached numerous mums and mums to be, been through it myself (twice) and have recently seen team mates come back after having a baby, as well as recently announce pregnancies.

There are many ways we can give them more support and help during this time: offer them other roles in the team other than ‘Player’ - it’s extra help, as well as keeping them involved in the team. Write a programme / encourage them to keep active - heaps more advice out there now than there was even five years ago. Keep in contact! Particularly when bubba is born, new mums can feel even more isolated, calls, messages and visits from netball friends will be welcome!

Ideas such as ‘mobile creches’ at matches, other mummy squad mates working a rota to look after children court-side, choosing venues with child-friendly facilities, setting up kids netball at same time as fixtures can all help mums, particularly struggling with childcare. We need to break down all these barriers by thinking ‘outside of the box’ to allow these women to return.

One thing is for sure, if I ever return to ‘semi serious’ league coaching I will be more sensitive to childcare & general ‘mummy’ problems. There are too many talented, committed & enthusiastic Netballers  out there, to lose them from that level, when they become mums is a sad state of affairs. What’s more, with some thought & planning it is preventable. 

I’m not sure what my netball playing future involves. It’s currently the second half of the season & I’ve already missed one game & missing another tomorrow. This is just down to my hubby being on shift & no other childcare available. My enthusiasm, loyalty & effort has not wavered, in fact it’s stronger than ever. My motivation for playing netball is all-consuming these days ( wish I had a bit of that attitude when I was younger I might have got a bit further!) which makes my predicament all that more frustrating!

The injustice of it really irks me. It really shouldn’t be this difficult.

I’m reluctant to drop down to social league - I injured myself playing regional & whilst I realistically wouldn’t have got back there I promised myself during the hours of lonely squats, lunges & cycling I would get back to playing the best level I could. I am left wondering if all those squats were worth it

#11 Facilities

I once sat down in front of a Leisure Centre Manager to explain why my Back to Netball session that wasn’t yet up and running and had no participants  ‘deserved’ sports hall time in a specific spot, over a men’s five a side  football team who had been in that spot for over 15 years and (this is key) paid the ‘going rate’.

My ‘pitch’ (for an hour in a local council-owned leisure facility, remember) included stats on women’s participation in sport locally, figures on obesity and domestic violence in the area and a detailed ‘menu of opportunity’ hilighting the need for the netball programme in the area!

He wasn’t having a bar of it - until I pulled out one of the leisure centre’s timetables that I had taken the trouble to colour code with opportunities for males to take part in activities, opportunities for women to participate and opportunities for mixed gender. It will come as no surprise it was male dominated. (By some margin I may add).

Having already mentioned my strong ties with the local newspaper and I had hotfooted it from an appearance on local radio to be at the meeting - I think he got the point and gave me what I wanted!😉

It really shouldn’t be that difficult,  at a local authority facility, to secure an hour of time on a netball court though.

I’ve had vast experience of booking various facilities across my county. Both indoors and outdoors, leisure centres - mainly run by private companies on behalf of local authorities now, schools - who seem to be heading the same way, especially those with Academy status and private courts run by community groups, entrepreneurs and church organisations.

I’ve received many different levels of customer service at these places! The best levels always seem to be outside courts where you are often out on your own - no groups before or after you and no big music systems or class equipment to put away! The drawbacks normally include toilets being half a mile away, teenage groups hanging around either to intimidate (purposely or not) or cause trouble and occasionally having to clean up glass or dog poop before we can start.

By far the worst customer service is when the staff members have no idea about netball - the posts come out but they have no idea where to put them. They are late because they’re aren’t enough of them and they double up as lifeguards. They’re there earning minimum wage for unsocial hours with little appreciation from Managers, who are locked away in offices counting the revenue. They have no opportunity for career progression because there are no sports development teams anymore (shout out to Eastleigh Borough Council, who not only have an AMAZING Sports Development team they are a great example of how they impact all areas of the local community positively!)

That’s when you can get in to the sports facilities by the way! I have two examples of brand new indoor facilities that were left abandoned or can’t be used by the local community!

One is a sports hall, built in an inner city school, but isn’t allowed to be hired to the public as the school didn’t realise it had to pay VAT on the build and owes HMRC £2million! I’m not an expert in building, accounting or education but surely common sense should prevail - the school should be able to hire out  facilities in order to pay the VAT bill quicker and the local community can use the hall to the improve social deprivation, obesity and other health issues, in the area.

The other example is in a more rural location, where a new housing site was being built - as with all housing projects various facilities and amenities normally need to be built alongside housing, at the cost of the developer. I kept hearing wonderful things about this new small, community sports hall and was looking forward to viewing and using! Unfortunately it took over a year from full completion to it first being open - because the developers, local parish council and County Council could decide who ‘owned’ it and who had responsibility to run it!

A whole brand spanking new netball court (OK other sports could be played on it too!) stood there waiting to be played on but the doors remained locked!

I’m not a political animal (although I made sure I vote when required) but I do remember a more positive time when local councils ran their own facilities - they weren’t without problem but space seemed  to be easier to book, it was definitely cheaper and sports groups had relationships with Sports Development Officers and colleagues to actually progress, promote and provide opportunities for participation in all sorts of sports.

Our local leisure centre (the only accessible indoor 2 court facility in the city) had its floor re laid recently. The previous floor has been down since before I was born so you could say it was a bit overdue!  I managed to arrange a meeting there on the day I knew it was meant to be finished and  I will admit to finding an unlocked door and having a little jump on it in celebration! Always the rebel! It was and is, beautiful! Sprung (godsend for anyone who’s been through ACL rehab) and the netball lines are purple - my favourite colour!

It is a crying shame therefore, that the kick boards that separate the two courts, mostly made up of MDF and gaffer tape patches and the ripped and stained surrounding curtains were not also replaced!

The cherry on top by the way......... a model railway exhibition was the first event the new sprung floor welcomed onto its shiny lines! 🙄

It’s not all bad of course, I have struck up relationships with various facility staff members over the years and benefitted from the effort. The best example, of course, is the generosity shown when I’ve organised charity netball festivals. I have had several local facilities give me sports hall or court time for free and have always been exceptionally grateful, particularly publicly, for their support.

I’m not sure what the answer is to more equality in our sports centres and better access to netball courts for our growing number of ‘ballers. It all boils down to cost of course and I don’t see many new facilities or courts being built in the near future!

I am attending a ‘focus group’ soon, organised by the local university who are tentatively building a very exciting inner city sports facility. I am positive about contributing my experiences and excited about the prospect that this new facility will be organised and run in an entirely different and maybe, even fairer, way! I am also interested in what is going to happen to their existing sports facilities - a vast outdoor site on the edge of the city  which is well maintained and very popular with the local community. There are also two indoor sports hall in central locations, neither one has anything wrong with them and are categorically NOT surplus to requirements.

My hope is that there are lots of opportunities for progression for sports in the city, the new facility could be a catalyst of change for good!

#10 Awards

Maybe it’s the FABULOUS news that England Roses team mates  Jo Harten & Serena Guthrie have been awarded MBEs in the New Years Honours list. Or maybe it’s because it’s the end of the year and I am reflecting on the successes and what I can do better in 2020! Either way I have been thinking about awards lately and how they can be used to thank our superb netball volunteers!

I have been lucky enough to be a recipient of nominations for awards and honoured to even win a few of them! I picked up ‘Supporter of the Year’ a long time ago at The News ( local newspaper) Sports Awards - allegedly beating John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood by one vote! (Google him, I promise you will not be disappointed!)

In 2017 the Back to Netball / Walking Netball Coaching Team in South East Hampshire won the ‘Making a Difference’ Award at the Energise Me Awards - it was a very special evening and a memory I will treasure forever.

On both occasions it was a very humbling experience. But, and I make no apologies for saying this: I deserved to win them. That’s not very humble but in this feminist age of pushing ourselves forward and not apologising for breaking glass ceilings: it’s true!

Our volunteers, of which I am proud to say I am one, do not get the credit they deserve from the ‘powers that be’ and it’s something I write and talk about a lot to try and highlight the fact! Without our volunteers there would be no netball. Fact.

Awards are a great way to acknowledge and thank our volunteers - let’s face it running a league, umpiring, table officiating, being a Team Manager and the other umpteen voluntary roles that happen up and down the country on a regular basis, is often a thankless task! You get more complaints and issues than you do praise!

I saw some promotion for the Goalden Globes on social media this morning, not for my geographical area but I believe the idea is that there is a county round: winners go through to regional level and then the regional winners go through to the National Awards. It’s a great idea, in theory.

Practically, for me, it doesn’t really work and hasn’t done for a long time! That’s not to take away from the award winners though - every single one of them, have contributed to the success of netball and are worthy recipients of the accolades.

Some of the issues I have with this particular netball- specific system is that a lot of netball volunteers can’t even be nominated! Up until 2019 (and let’s hope it’s changed for 2020!) most of the  individual awards had criteria including ‘nominee must be affiliated to England Netball’. My disappointment that I couldn’t nominate any, very worthy, walking netball volunteers often makes way for anger that we still haven’t addressed it after at least three years of me ‘banging on about it’!

I did raise it with a ‘netball bigwig’ once and the response was ‘get them affiliated then’. It’s a story for another time with a lot of sighs of exasperation!

Also, and this is important, not every county subscribe to the bigger picture of the awards! My county association, for example, didn’t organise any volunteer awards last year and the year before that it was the ‘netball volunteers awards’ rather than Goalden Globes - very different categories but again very worthy winners!

I think the Goalden Globes are another example (and there are a few now!) of where netball’s infrastructure and organisation has not kept pace with the development and success of the game. Perhaps netball is a victim of its own success, in this sense!

So, how about the non netball-specific awards? I LOVE seeing so many netball volunteers nominated and winning various awards up and down the country, through social media. There are the local area sports awards of course, which are normally council led or local sports partnership organised. You are reliant on budgets and also the ethos of these organisations though - sadly, but understandably, the Energise Me Awards finished in 2017. The County Sports Partnership became a charitable trust and the awards no longer met their aims and objectives. For me it’s a crying shame but I will always be very grateful and honoured that I was one of the final award recipients!

Some local newspapers also organise sports awards. My own experience of these were awesome. I saw our local sports awards grow from 50ish seat community theatres to the Guildhall decked out in all its glory! Sadly, these stopped a few years ago now and I suspect, as much as the original thoughts were full of good intentions, the award weren’t as financially beneficial for the newspaper as they once were!

My quest for nominating worthy netball volunteers continues, as in my area, at least, there doesn’t seem to be that many opportunities anymore. I’ve looked into ‘community awards’ that are not netball or even sports-specific. The trouble you have there of course is that the bigger the pool the more competition you have!

The forms you need to fill in are also immense - ironically not a lot of consideration for the nominators, who I assume will be 90% volunteers!

In conclusion I still believe that, in theory, awards are still a great way of acknowledging our netball volunteers. As well as the award winners it’s a great way of celebrating netball and sharing stories and successes with like minded people.

We need a find a format, a fairness and a system that works for the ever changing netball landscape though! I don’t think it’s the Goalden Globes - but, like our great game, it can evolve and I look forward to the day when I see one of my Walking Netball volunteers stride on to stage to pick up their award. They are worthy too.