Blog by Louise, May 2014.
Last Friday we went to the Oxfordshire Netball Awards night. We put ourselves forward for a few awards – Coach of the Year, Back to Netball Team of the Year and Junior Unsung Hero of the Year (for our amazing secretary, Felicity). We were delighted to be awarded the Coach of the Year for Paula, our most fabulous coach! First award of the night and we were in! Well done Paula!
Last Friday we went to the Oxfordshire Netball Awards night. We put ourselves forward for a few awards – Coach of the Year, Back to Netball Team of the Year and Junior Unsung Hero of the Year (for our amazing secretary, Felicity). We were delighted to be awarded the Coach of the Year for Paula, our most fabulous coach! First award of the night and we were in! Well done Paula!
Since forming almost a year ago we have come a long, long way. As I blogged back in October we formed out of a Back to Netball group who knew nothing about netball apart from some vague memories of playing at school in the icy cold where your fingers went numb and then bent backwards when you caught the ball. Anyway, after some weekly training and lessons on how to throw and catch we slowly improved and entered the Oxfordshire league. I am very pleased to report that we finished fourth in our league. FOURTH! (Out of about nine or ten teams, before you ask if it was out of five!). This was beyond what we would have imagined at the start.
What struck me most about the awards night was the passion and spirit of everyone there and that they have for their sport. The bios read out for the nominees were so admirable in the number of hours and the dedication people put into their sport. This is mostly voluntary as well and I suppose might usually go unnoticed. But these are the people that allow us to play and it was great to be able to thank them in an evening of netball celebration.
For us, Paula puts in hours and hours and is there week after week. She is truly committed to the sport and would have us play late into the night at training each week if we didn’t remind her it was 10pm and we’re starving! And there’s Felicity without who there would be no Oxford City Netball Club. She tirelessly works away sorting us all out and getting us into the league. A massive thank you to both of them!
Alas we did not win the hotly anticipated Back to Netball Team of the Year. But, by the sounds of it, Didcot were worthy winners and we say congrats. And that we’ll see them next year to contest for it again! ;)
So a great night of netball chat, team selfies and dancing to a most random mix of music was had by all. We look forward to next year when maybe we’ll be collecting our trophies for being winners of the league!
What struck me most about the awards night was the passion and spirit of everyone there and that they have for their sport. The bios read out for the nominees were so admirable in the number of hours and the dedication people put into their sport. This is mostly voluntary as well and I suppose might usually go unnoticed. But these are the people that allow us to play and it was great to be able to thank them in an evening of netball celebration.
For us, Paula puts in hours and hours and is there week after week. She is truly committed to the sport and would have us play late into the night at training each week if we didn’t remind her it was 10pm and we’re starving! And there’s Felicity without who there would be no Oxford City Netball Club. She tirelessly works away sorting us all out and getting us into the league. A massive thank you to both of them!
Alas we did not win the hotly anticipated Back to Netball Team of the Year. But, by the sounds of it, Didcot were worthy winners and we say congrats. And that we’ll see them next year to contest for it again! ;)
So a great night of netball chat, team selfies and dancing to a most random mix of music was had by all. We look forward to next year when maybe we’ll be collecting our trophies for being winners of the league!