The ball was buzzing at the prelims of the Netball World Cup in Liverpool – and so were the crowd. The injection of teams new to this world cup raised the tempo - and the noise level - providing new role models for girls world-wide. New-comers to world netball Zimbabwe came out and surprised world champions The Aussie Diamonds by their speed and sophisticated use of ‘bounce’ passes. They then shocked 8th ranked Northern Ireland by beating them 51-49!
Vigour Passion & Confidence
The vigour, passion and confidence seen at this World cup makes you realise what an important sport netball is for women worldwide. Unlike women’s football, which has also come on leaps & bounds with increases in media coverage and sponsorship, netball is NOT subjugated to the men’s game. This world cup is run, organised, directed and enjoyed mostly by women. And you only have to experience the passion of the crowd to realise what great job is being done to grow the sport.
Behind the scenes . . . more hard work!
Behind the preliminary matches and in anticipation of next week’s final – two organisations - The International Netball Federation – [INF] & The Women’s Sports Network – [WSNet] are working hard to maximise these World Championships for girls around the world at ‘grass roots’.
MORE FROM Sport&Dev.org - HERE
- Creating Choices - The INF used star ‘ballers’ @Sharni_Layton and @carolinebarker to launch ‘Creating Choices’ [CC] - a social movement bringing together netballers from all over the world. CC will capitalise on the enormous growth and popularity of netball and crystallise the 20m or so netballers worldwide encouraging them to join up as one huge team. All working together to spread the potential that netball offers to empower girls around the world through netball.
- NETBALLMoJo – WSNet launched the latest in a string of manuals designed to help girls worldwide get into netball and help them overcome some of the issues they face when engaging in competitive sport. NETBALLMoJo draws heavily on the Alanna Antcliff (@AussieDiamonds physio) KNEE Program to improve strength and reduce injury in young players. NETBALLMoJo is already being used (and translated into ZULU) by Dumisani Chauke (Ex SA Proteas) to
help engage girls in netball in rural areas of South Africa. It also provides a great opportunity to engage with potential sponsors of her foundation.
Grass roots - it’s heartening to see organisations using world class events to engage at grass roots – not only creating new role models but new opportunities for girls in netball. If you want to get involved in ‘Creating Choices’ go to www.creatingchoices.org to sign up, be part of the team and have the chance to win tix for the next Netball World Cup in Cape Town 2023.
NETBALLMoJo– you can download a FREE copy from www.WSNet.co.uk website – if you are involved in netball programmes, like Dumi’s, and are helping girls gain confidence by engaging in netball, WSNet (a not-for-profit organisation) would like to talk to you to see how they might support your work. Contact Paul Reynolds (paul.r@wsnet.co.uk) for some free hard copies of NETBALLMoJo and to see how WSNet might help you.
