A club’s rapid expansion in just a year shows the passion for netball in Spalding, its founder claims.
The town was without a club until Spalding Netball Club was founded last July with 17 members who had nowhere to play in the town.
Now they have over 70 members on Facebook aged between 11 and mid-60s and its not just women that are taking to the court.
Last month a team of men and women competed in the club’s first competition, an event for mixed teams in which Spalding came fourth.
Now the club has found its feet it is looking at launching further competitive teams and improving the opportunities of players and officials.
Sessions every Wednesday are held at Spalding High School’s gym between 7pm and 8.30pm and more.
Michelle Smith was one of those who set the club up as surprisingly for a town of Spalding’s size there were no clubs in the area.
“We only started out as a couple of girls who wanted to play together in our town,” she said. “Now we’ve grown so much we’ve got to talk about making everything official as we can only see it growing further as word about us continues to get around.
“We’ve got all sorts of players at the club.
“We’ve got a few kids playing the sport including one young lad who is 11 and another lady who is in her mid-60s.
“There’s all shapes and abilities.
“We’re just all about having fun.
“There’s no committee for the club as yet, that’s the next step, but we’ve qualified coaches able to pass on their knowledge and skills.
“We’ve not entered a competitive team into a league yet, but it’s something we’re looking at and I know there’s a few girls that would love to do that.
“What we do have is a number of contacts with clubs and if players do want to play competitively immediately we can put them in contact with the leagues in the likes of Boston, Stamford and Wisbech.
“We can also help others who may want to get into officiating in the sport.”
Popularity in netball has continued to grow in recent years with the setting up of the Netball SuperLeague and England teams beginning to challenge dominance of the southern hemisphere teams.
Liverpool hosts next year’s quadrennial World Cup.
Spalding resident Michelle is a volunteer with the East Midlands branch of Netball England and is pushing to grow the sport in this area and get more people into sport.
The club are involved with the national Back to Netball scheme that aims to get more women playing a game they may have loved at school but haven’t taken part in for years.
Michelle last year organised a team at Bakkavor where she works that competed at a national tournament at Arsenal FC’s Emirates Stadium.
She oversees the Wednesday night sessions that cost just £3 per person to attend.
“We do half an hour of training drills and then play netball afterwards,” she continued. “They’re fun and friendly netball sessions for all abilities and we look forward to welcoming more players.”
For more information on the club you can contact Michelle on 07701078917 or you can apply to be a member of the Spalding Netball Club Facebook group.
