Just to prove the point that you are never too old to play Netball, one enterprising team from a care home in Warrington, Manchester, has an average age of 90–and the oldest player is an unbelievable 101!!

Co-ordinator and coach, Christine Carroll, apparently got the idea from an exercise session when one of the residents threw a ball as if she was shooting into a net. The other ladies began to swap stories of netball prowess from their younger days, and the team was born!

Ethel Lee, former wedding dress maker, has helped to make the kit and each player has their position stitched on the back in glittery doilies.

Over the last few weeks, the ladies have improved their game enormously and have begun using taller nets as their throws become stronger. They are now hoping to find other care home teams to play against so that they can form a league.

As team member, Ivy Robinson says, “You’re never too old to do anything. Just because we’re getting old it doesn’t mean that we can’t join in!”

The England girls’ netball squad are to play their first game against the Sunshine Girls from Jamaica today. The Caribbean team are their opponents in a crucial two match test series and the second match is scheduled for Friday 3rd September.

The Jamaica team are definitely no push-over and the games look set to be good team practice in the all important run up towards the Commonwealth Games in October.

This is the first time the England team have hit the court in a Test Match since their crushing defeat against the Aussie team back in February, but the girls have since shown excellent form and Head Coach, Sue Hawkins, will be hoping they show their mettle against the Jamaican squad.

But with the Sunshine Girls from Jamaica currently ranked fourth in the world, the England girls will have their work cut out this week!

If you missed the live action today, you can catch the next match via, for the first time ever, a live twitter feed.

Australian netball coach, Nora Plummer, has finally announced her Diamonds team for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in Dehli. The girls have been on tenterhooks for weeks as Plummer waited to announce her final team, but the waiting is finally now over and, as expected, Plummer has decided to go with a proven formula.

The three players who have been dropped for the Dehli games are shooter Kate Beveridge, centre court player Maison Brown, and defender Amy Steele. Since these three are the youngest players, it did not come as too much of a surprise that they have been omitted from the final team. Following extensive experimentation with various team formations of late, Plummer is now convinced she has the winning team. When asked about her decision to drop the three younger girls, Plummer commented that they have plenty of time to make their mark on the world of International netball in the future.

Plummer will now be hoping that her team has what it takes to steal the gold medal away from previous winners, New Zealand…

For those of you who thought Men don’t play netball, think again!

The word from down under in New Zealand is that The Silver Ferns will be looking for blokes when they play Adelaide tomorrow in the run up to New Zealand’s first test match against Australia on Sunday.

Just in case your mind has drifted off on a tangent at this point, no, the Kiwi side isn’t planning on a wild night out on the pull in Adelaide–the girls often play against men’s teams to prepare them for the physical challenge of a tough Aussie team.

The girls’ firmly believe that playing against men in practice is great for experiencing the pressure of a tough game during competitions and midcourt player, Liana Barret-Chase says, “It’s exactly what we need”. We’re presuming she means men to play NETBALL with…

Silver Ferns Coach, Ruth Fern, will be shipping men into the players’ camp to “help them out.”

Go girls!

Leeds City Council, England Netball, and West Yorkshire County Netball Association have launched FastNet!

The event is going to be included as part of a netball funday being held at Armley Leisure Center. It will be taking place on Sunday 5th September. There will be a game in the afternoon for players, coaches and officials to watch, but the morning will the important bit dedicating to developing the netballers of the future. The organisers say that FastNet is designed to attract a whole new and hopefully talented group of players to the wonderful sport of netball. It designed to build on the wonderful success of Back to Netball programmes that have been a pivotal part of introducing more than 100 women back to netball.

U11s can play for free on the day, but over 16s are invited to come along and for a £10 fee, they can stay for the whole day and watch the new FastNet style game as well as join in the Back to Netball games.

Anyone who wants further information should contact the Leeds Sport Development Unit.

Athletes need to be a minimum of 16yrs old on the day and free to attend a training session on 5th September if they are successful.

If you are interested in applying for a place, make sure you get your application in before Monday 30th August!

The Netball Talent League (U19) trials will take place on Saturday 2nd October at the same venue. You must be a minimum of 14 yrs old to attend and free to come along for the 1st training session on Sunday 3rd October of you get picked.

Good luck!

Three lucky girls from Bath will be travelling to Dehli in October to take part in the Commonwealth Games as part of the UK netball squad.

Teambath players Pamela Cookey, Eboni Beckford-Chambers, and Stacey Francis have all been short listed into the final twelve players. The additional honour of the Vice Captain role will also go to Pamela Cookey.

After an impressive bronze medal in 1998 when netball was first introduced to the Commonwealth Games, followed up by another bronze medal in 2006, the UK team will be hoping for an even better result in 2010!

Those of you who have checked here periodically may have noticed a lack of recent postings. Well have no fear, we are now back online and will be regularly posting news snippets as well as useful bits of information relating to the UK and international netball scene.

Make sure you bookmark the site in your browser (if you haven’t already done so!) and check back once or twice per week for new stories and posts. And of course if you have any suggestions about how we can improve the site, drop us a line and let us know!

The results from yesterday’s matches are in. Here you go:

My predictions were as far out as they could be… none out of three correct. Certainly the Mavericks Loughborough will be upset with their losses to - on the face of it - weaker teams. This year’s competition is turning out to be very interesting indeed.

UK Superleague games being played today. Good luck to everyone. Team Bath play Brunel Hurricanes on Monday

Mavericks v Leeds Carnegie may be an interesting game. The Mavericks will be on a high after beating Team Bath, while Leeds Carnegie will be wanting to cement their (very) early lead.

I’m going to put my neck out here and make some predictions:

Mavericks - Leeds Carnegie - Win to Mavericks
Celtic Dragons - Northern Thunder - Win to Celtic Dragons
Loughborough Lightning - Team Northumbria - Win to Loughborough

What do you think? Add your predictions in the comments!