We’ve added a new section on the Netball Superleague (look, there! Over on the right!). There’s not much in it at the moment, but there is a complete Netball Superleague Fixture List for the 2007-2008 season which we hope you will find useful.

As always your comments are welcomed.

I bet you thought we’d gone for good, didn’t you? Well here we are! We really have been doing something this time, and you’re going to see it over the next few days.

This is advance notice of the fact that we’re switching the servers on which Netball Fun lives in a few hours. Hopefully the technical guys in the background have got everything sorted out and there should be little or no downtime for the site; you might experience some issues with images loading and the page seemingly being messed up, but don’t worry. For your reference, you are currently seeing the new version of the site. Congratulations!

[EDIT: There are a few minor formatting issues, but we’re sorting them! If you spot anything at all that doesn’t look right, please tell us.]

It is a fact that netball has long been a competitive sport in the UK. It was first brought over from the USA where it was designed to be an alternative to basketball for women in 1891 (see our section on the History of Netball for more information). It didn’t take long for its popularity to filter across the Atlantic and by the 1920s, young girls everywhere were playing it. Most women today will remember playing it at school because it has been a staple of physical education programs since the 1920s. However, up until recently there was no competitive competition that encompassed the whole of the UK. There were many local leagues in force, but it took until 2005, over 100 years after it was first invented, for a nationwide league to come into being.

Plans were announced on Tuesday 4th October 2005 by England Netball to launch its very own Super League. England Netball formulated plans to bring about the league as a result of the national side being ranked 4th in the world. There is no doubt that this was an achievement, but England Netball didn’t think that the national side had gone as far as they could go. Countries like Australia made sure that their girls experienced competition week in and week out in preparation for international fixtures, but our English and Welsh netball players only had local competition, which was not good enough in terms of the standard and rigours of international competition.

The Super League was definitely designed to raise the level of quality in England, and so far it has done what it set out to achieve. The national squad won the bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in 2006 after beating Jamaica. The overall performance was phenomenal and demonstrated that weekly competition had definitely helped to improve the standard of the side, and that was after only two full months of competition!

The Super League began in late October 2005 with eight teams in total playing weekly fixtures, both home and away. The teams are Team Bath, Brunel Hurricanes, Loughborough Lightening, Mavericks, Team Northumbria, Northern Thunder, Celtic Dragons and Leeds Met Carnegie. The inaugural season proved to be extremely popular and thus it was decided that the league would continue. It is now coming to the start of the second season of the Super League and it is proving to be as popular as ever and no doubt the England team will continue to go from strength to strength as a result.

England Under 19s Are Netball Champions Of Europe

The future of netball in England certainly looks bright. Not only do we have some of the best youngsters in Europe coming through the ranks, but we also have the trophy to prove it! The England Under-19s squad won the Netball Europe tournament that was held in Cardiff earlier this month. Whilst our Under-17s and Open squads also did well, this talented young squad overshadowed them.

The squad had to battle their way through four matches to secure victory and did it in style. Not only were the results excellent, but also each individual player gave 100% and showed off her talents in front of the Welsh crowd. Here is a quick rundown of their tournament:

Northern Ireland – The very first game for the girls proved to be their toughest test of the tournament. Northern Ireland looked excellent and really gave them a run for their money. They may indeed be the side to watch for in the future. However, this game was to be England’s in the end. Neither side gained much of an advantage during the game, although England did manage to go ahead by 7 in the early moments of the match. Fantastic defending and counter-attack by Northern Ireland meant that every point was matched in the later stages of the game, but England ultimately merged victors with a 30-27 score line.

Scotland – The squad’s second match was a much more impressive victory with a final score of 36-15. It was obvious that the girls were beginning to get into their stride during the second game. However, the high point of the game was Katy Rose’s 9 goals from 11 attempts. It marked her return from serious injury and she demonstrated the fact that she hadn’t missed a beat and was possibly better than ever. Head coach, Kendra Slawinski, took the opportunity to praise the whole team though, stating:

This was a much better performance. It was a physical game, but our through-court defence and ball movement was particularly good, which saw us through.

Little did she know that it was to get better!

Gibraltar - The squad cruised to victory against Gibraltar, emerging victorious by an impressive margin of 63-10. The earlier matches proved to be warm up games as England really began to get into their stride. Both attack and defence were strong at this point, and England emerged as favourites to take the title… despite having home advantage against them for the final.

Wales – The Cardiff crowd resolutely cheered their girls on, but it was to be England that emerged victorious. The final score was 38-14 as a result of quick-paced end-to-end action that made the game more exciting than any other. England’s defence was outstanding, as was the attack. Captain Emma Lonsdale particularly showed her true colours and led the team gallantly.

The England Under-19s squad thoroughly deserved their victory and looked the best side in the competition by far. Here is to the future, because it definitely looks bright!

There has been very little activity on this site of late. Rest assured though, we have not been taking a holiday.

We’ll be back with regular updates very shortly. In addition, we’re preparing a brand new look for the site and some new features for you.

We’ll be concentrating initially on the UK netball scene, but we’ll certainly be featuring important news from around the globe. Naturally, we’ll still have our very popular tips and techniques articles (which are being expanded as we speak).

We hope you can join us soon at the new look site soon!

The England Netball ladies made their way through to the semi-finals today following an impressive victory over South Africa. This is a relief after their loss to a strong performance from current world champions New Zealand yesterday Goal Shooter Louisa Brownfield managed a very consistent 47 from 53.

Captain Olivia Murphy said

We have some exciting young players. I don’t think we’ve ever had as many exuberant young players. Louisa (Brownfield) is growing in confidence and hardly missed anything.

England’s next game is against Australia on Saturday; Australia finished second in their group behind Australia with a 107-19 demolition of Singapore 19-107 today.

England made it three wins from three at the Melbourne Commonwealths 2006 with a 78-18 thrashing of a spirited St Vincent and the Grenadines. This win puts England on top of their group, ahead of New Zealand only on points difference; tomorrow (Wednesday 22nd March) will see the long awaited clash between the two.

Once again, all of England’s players got some valuable court time, and experience. Louisa Brownfield (Mavericks) was the game’s top-scorer with 26 goals from 30 attempts. England play New Zealand on Wednesday (22 March) and South Africa on Thursday (23 March).

England’s captain, Olivia Murphy, said:

We wanted to start strongly and get a good score in the first quarter, and give all of our players some Commonwealth Games experience. We’re building all the time for our games against New Zealand and South Africa, so we wanted to improve with each game … We’ve got a day without a game tomorrow and then we will need to improve again against New Zealand.

We’re progressing nicely, but we now need to step-up a couple of levels against New Zealand. We’re looking forward to the challenge of playing the number one team in the world.

The past three games provided some essential match experience for some of England’s more green players, but now they have two crunch matches that will really tell a story.

England’s netballers began their quest for Commonwealth Games medals with a victory over Malawi in their pool A match at Melbourne’s State Netball Centre, winning 63-47.

England made it look difficult at times, particularly so in the second half, and England’s coach Marg Caldow knows they’ll have to find some better form before they face slightly tougher opposition in the form of New Zealand and South Africa next week:

It was a bit patchy, but it was what I expected really. Malawi are extremely unorthodox and play very differently to most teams.

said Caldow.

England established their superiority early and led20-11 after the first quarter. Dunn netted 13 goals from 16 attempts, while Cookey madde her mark with seven goals.

England went into the half time break leading 36-24 and struggled to extend their lead in the third quarter which ended 50-36. The victory was never in serious doubt although Malawi all-but matched England in the final quarter as Caldow gave all 12 of her squad important match practice. Dunn ended the game top scorer with 23 goals. Cookey got 13 and 21-year-old Louisa Brownfield from Thundersley in Essex, who came on for Dunn in the second half, netted 19.

England’s next match is against Fiji tomorrow (Saturday 18 March) at 13.00 Melbourne time.

Bath retained their lead this weekend with a rout of the Celtic Dragons. This won’t be good morale for the Welsh national team going into the Commonwealth Games, with many of their players being bettered by their Bath oppoite numbers.Loughborough had an impressive win over Leeds Met Carnegie, and Mavericks beat Brunel.

In the one lower-table clash of the weekend, Northern Thunder beat Team Northumbria by a closer-than-close 1 point.

Full Results:

Jamaica have recently confirmed ther 12-strong squad that will compete in the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.

The line-up is as follows: