Netball is often seen as a sport for the unsporty. But as enthusiast Vicky Frost reports, if played properly, it’s a great workout – which may be why it is enjoying a revival
Right. Let’s get the joking over and done with. I am not in the fifth form. I am not currently wearing a very small kilt or a T-shirt with my name badly embroidered over one nipple. Neither am I speaking in the kind of voice last heard in Malory Towers. I am not, in short, some kind of overgrown freak who wishes she was still at school. I just like netball.
Why the whole netball/school problem exists is one of sport’s great mysteries. Football seems to manage just fine. You don’t get people asking Steven Gerrard if he’s trying to recapture his youth by going for a kickaround – even if grown men do weep like children around him. Footie, though, with its enormous pitch, is obviously a fit man’s game. Netball, according to its detractors, is a sport for people who don’t like actual sport.
Of course, when played by reluctant teenagers more preoccupied with customising their games kit than with playing wing attack, netball is not the most physical activity – movement mainly being restricted to tugging on a bib and occasional weak-wristed attempts at throwing the ball all of, ooh, three feet. But played properly, it’s an exhilarating, technical, bloody-hell-I’m-knackered sport. What’s more, it is enjoying a popularity boom after being rediscovered by adults. There are now more than 60,000 registered players in almost 3,000 clubs across the country. Read the rest of this entry »
Bookmark & Share
Categories: Netball, Netball Blog | |
Last Wednesday (July 28th) saw the culmination of our Summer season at Liverpool Street with a few of the teams deciding fancy dress was the most apt way to mark the occassion. The result was one of the strangest adverts for mixed netball we’ve seen in a long time!
Team America, a rogue collective of dysfunctional super-heroes and eccentrics took on C U Next Wednesday who probably best resembled a stag-party looking for the bar. C U Next Wednesday, complete with cheerleaders, edged the game whilst Team America took the accolades for the season. Congratulations to all involved!
We currently have mixed Netball availability at the following venues:
London Bridge starting August 9th
Vauxhall starting August 16th
If you’d like to get involved please contact Jennie.Hart@topcorner.co.uk or Bayo@topcorner.co.uk
Bookmark & Share
Categories: Blog, High 5, Netball, Netball Blog | |
By Kate Youde
Sunday Independent 14th February 2010
For some it brings back memories of happy school games; for others it means overcoming horrific flashbacks of gym knickers. But more women are returning to the netball court, lured by the prospect of exercise and team spirit.
The number of people aged 16 and over playing netball at least once a week leapt by 12 per cent to 133,500 in October 2009. According to Sport England, there was a 52 per cent rise in players aged 20 to 24.
Tracey Neville, a former England international and commentator for Sky Sports, said at a time when there was “a massive drive towards getting fit and healthy and reducing obesity”, netball is an easy sport to pick up because everybody had played it at school and knows the rules.
The amateur sport attracts up to 250,000 television viewers, with Sky Sports screening matches from the nine-team Superleague weekly, as well as internationals. “People are starting to recognise the sport, follow it and get an interest in it,” said Ms Neville, whose brothers Gary and Phil are Premiership footballers. “When people can relate to the sport, they want to go out and play. It’s like when Wimbledon’s on, all the tennis courts are full.”
Read full article
Bookmark & Share
Categories: High 5, Netball, Netball Blog | Tags: Netball, Netball London |
We’ve created a blog here especially for all things netball. Watch this space for developments …
Bookmark & Share
Categories: Netball Blog | |
