Brilliant success for the West Yorkshire Back to Netball festival
Published on: 8th December 2011
Over the past 7 months, 450 lovely ladies from Leeds have been reacquainting themselves with the fabulous game of netball. The Back to Netball sessions have enticed ladies of various ages, fitness levels and ability levels to re-discover their love of netball in a fun and social environment.
Following 7 months of training and through popular demand from the Back to Netball ladies, a West Yorkshire Back to Netball festival was hosted at Lawnswood YMCA sports centre in Leeds.
The festival encouraged 14 brand new Back to Netball teams across West Yorkshire, including Leeds, Bradfordand Menston.
In all, the festival providedan opportunity for the Back to Netball ladies to meet and play against each other in a fun and friendly competitive netball environment.
The day was kick started with a health talk and fun group warm up supported by our official partners Cancer research UK. Once the ladies were ready andraring to go, the netball began in a 2 court round robin format.
Initially, the ladies were all for the social element of the festival however, once the news spread that there were trophies to be won, the team talks and the motivational speeches came through.
The Pass on your Passion volunteers and officials did a superb job assisting the teams throughout the dayand before we knew it the final was upon us.
The playoffs for overall first andsecond place was between Menston Ladies and The Avengers.
After a nail biting 10 minutes of play, the score was 2-2 and a decision was made to play for Golden Goal. Both teams played an astonishing game of netball with Menston Ladies pipping The Avengers to the post to claim the overall first place title.
The day ended with an awardsceremony supported by all the teams.
Following the days events, Emily Hearle (Leeds Netball Development Community Coach and Event Organiser) commented, “the festival was absolutely brilliant.
Theladies thoroughly enjoyed themselves and I have witnessed some amazing netball played today. I am extremely proud of all the ladies have achieved over such a small period of time”. Feedback from the festival equally complemented Emily’s comments.
Julie Casper, a back to netballer from TheFalcons Back to Netball team said, “wanted to say another huge thank you for organisingthe event today -we really really enjoyed it!
The other teams were really friendly – infact we're arranging for a team of mums and daughters to come over to our school for a match”. Emily now plans to make the festival a quarterly event and is now putting plans together to develop a Back to Netball league for the ladies of West Yorkshire.
