Netball for grown-ups: it's a whole new ball game

I’m just five minutes into the first quarter of a training match with local netball team Sonics, and I’m already knackered. I’m playing in an attack position, and I know I’ve got to get the ball up the court to the shooting circle. But I’ve got a demon defender on my back, I’ve forgotten the rules, and my brain is having trouble working out which lines on the floor mark out the netball court. Despite all this, I’m having a blast. The hall’s full of laughter, shouts of encouragement, the squeak of trainers, whoops of delight with every goal scored and the slap of high-fives. The Express photographer, Steve, asks us to stop for a few pics. “I can’t keep up – it’s so fast,” says the man who snaps elite athletes for a living. When we goof around for pictures, I manage to score a goal. There’s a huge cheer. I feel invincible.

Netball is currently enjoying a huge resurgence, with England’s win over Australia at last year’s Commonwealth Games becoming a watershed moment for the sport.

At the game’s top level, the World Cup comes to Liverpool later this year, while league and club participa-tion continue to rise. You can watch the Vitality Superleague – the Premier League of netball – on Sky.

Netball England, the sport’s governing body, teamed up with the WI last year to encourage older women to play walking netball – with 100 groups booked in to play this year.

My return to the sport I’d hated as a girl has seen me bounce-passing a netball for the first time in 30-odd years to my mate Elaine Gosden, 39.

She started playing at school in the 1980s, just like me. But she never stopped and now plays a couple of matches a week with a team she’s been with for 20 years, despite having a young family and full-time job.

She and her teammates have been through births, marriages, deaths and break-ups together, and she says life without it is unthinkable.

“I bloody love netball,” she states. “When I play I forget about everything else. I can only think about the ball and the game.”

I, meanwhile, hung up the Green Flash as soon as I could, fed up with being overlooked when it came to picking teams and forced to wear an appallingly short games skirt.

For me, team sports were something for fitter, slimmer girls who swished their ponytails around, didn’t seem to sweat and looked good in tracksuits.

Not for the likes of me, with my spectacles, chunky thighs and heavy breathing.

My university application is still a family joke. “My life is dominated by hockey,” I pompously wrote, desperately scrabbling around for something – even a fictitious love for team sports – to put on the dreaded personal statement.

Once there, the women’s netball and hockey teams existed in a cloud of alcohol fumes and laddishness. I steered well clear.

Elaine clapped her hands with glee when I asked if I could gatecrash a training session. And now, as I rejoiced with a team of women I’d met just an hour earlier, glowing with pride at the “nice pass,” shouted in my direction, I wondered whether turning my back on a whole subculture of exercise and sport had been a bit of a blunder.

With all the fun I was having, why on earth had it taken me – a 46-year-old mother of three – 30 years to play netball like a kid again?

What, apart from having a valid reason to wear a “skort”, had I been missing out on? It’s this universal appeal – from elite to total novice – which Karen Young, 48, loves.

She played competitive netball at school, university and as an Army wife, and craves the physical side of the game.

“It’s fast, it’s stop-start. It’s punchy exercise. It’s a great workout,” she enthuses.

Insisting that the old preconception of netball being slow and bor-ing is simply wrong, she has now taken on coaching for the team, which is made up of women of all ages, sizes and standards.

For Karen, the competition is important, but the atmosphere feels inclusive and kind – there’s none of the “never get picked” fear here.

Everyone – whether they’re looking to progress competitively, like Hannah Woollard, 33, and a match regular, or merely throw the ball in the right direction, like me – gets the same opportunity to play.

Their teammate Charlotte Ratcliffe, 26, is a rocket round the pitch. I mark her for a quarter of the match, rubbernecking to check where she is, only to see her the other side of the court catching a perfectly-judged ball and passing it into the shooting circle.

She slows down for a moment to tell me getting back into the game has given her valuable headspace away from her young family.

“I love the matches. I’m competitive, but it’s about being with this lot too,” she says, gesturing round the court at her teammates.

By contrast, Claire Watton, 44, who gently steers me to the right part of the court when I play goal defence opposite her, isn’t at all fired up by the competitive atmosphere and wouldn’t dream of putting her hand up for a match. “I think every girl or woman has a netball experience at school they’ll never forget”, she laughs when we sit out for a quarter.

“Mine wasn’t positive – I never identified as sporty as a child.”

She admits to the occasional bout of imposter syndrome – of feeling that she’s not quite good enough – but loves the challenge of doing something new.

Soon afterwards, I throw the ball in the wrong direction – into the hands of the opposition. But my flustered apology is brushed away with a smile and a pat from one of my team.

Everyone I chat to has a different reason for coming along. For Angie Steadman, 46, it’s about identity: “When I’m here, I’m a netballer. I’m not a mum, a wife or a professional. It’s a bit of my life which is just about me. I love that.”

Belinda Houghton, 42, gained huge confidence from returning to netball. “I was a stay-at-home mum for nearly a decade,” she says.

“Before I went back to work I started to play again. I found proving my worth on the court in a team sport gave me the boost I needed to believe in myself for the return to work.”

She’s one of a core group of Sonics who play in a variety of competitive leagues locally.

I watched them on a freezing Thursday night as they held their own against a strong opposition, clad in striking liveried dresses over leggings and long-sleeved tops.

The pace is fast, the stamina impressive, and the whole mood is so uplifting. I see court after floodlit court filled with women and older girls battling it out, laughing, joking and applauding each other’s goals.

And even though I’m covered in other people’s coats to keep out the cold and wishing I had a hot drink, I can see why they turn out in the dark after work and family commitments. I tell them this, and seven faces turn towards me grinning.

“You see? You’ve always been a netballer,” cackles Elaine mischievously. “You just didn’t realise until now.”