For many netball clubs across Victoria, this weekend was meant to be a time of celebration. The Football Netball season was due to begin – a genuine cause for excitement in its own right – and for many teams who held aloft silverware at the end of the 2019 season, this first weekend of April was when they had earnt the right to unfurl their Premiership flag.
Catani Netball Club – located in a small town of the same name; 70 kilometres out of Melbourne, as you enter the Gippsland region – is one just one of these clubs. As of the last census, the town of Catani itself has a population of 289. It has a main street where the Football Netball Club is situated, which doubles as the cricket and tennis club in the summer months. There’s also a public hall one end of the street and a church at the other, with just one streetlight in between. The primary school closed in 1993, and there’s no pub or shops – just the Footy Netball Club in the winter months.
However, despite the size of the town in which it resides, Catani Netball Club has a long and proud history, dating back to 1947. With three junior teams and three open teams playing in the Ellinbank & District Netball Association’s (EDNA) competition, 2019 was definitely a year for the record books for the Club from the tiny town. Five of Catani’s six teams made it to the Grand Final - with the 15/U losing in the Preliminary Final to eventual Premiers, Longwarry) – and of those, both the A and B Grade teams came away Premiers, with comprehensive victories over Poowong and Ellinbank respectively. To top things off, Catani was awarded the EDNA’s Club Championship and Junior Club Championship for 2019.
That’s a pretty good season in anyone’s books but add in the fact that it had been 59 years since the club’s last Senior Premiership in 1960, this year’s planned unfurling of the Premiership flag was set to be extra special.
“We’re a small club that’s been starved of success for a long time,” said Catani Netball Club President – and B Grade and 13/U coach – Angela Banbury. “We were all very much looking forward to Round 1 to unfurl the flags.”
“Our last Senior Premiership was in 1960 when my mum, Beryl Banbury (nee Sutton), captained Catani to a three-peat of Premierships in a string of six consecutive Grand Final appearances, between 1956 and 1961,” Banbury continued.
“Most of the players from the three Premierships are still alive and often come to Catani reunions, Season Launch, Round 1 matches, and the like. Unfortunately, Club legend and Premiership player, Nancye McDonald (nee Lineham) passed away in March 2019, just prior to the season commencing. Her granddaughter, Selby McDonald, is the Club Secretary, and daughter in law, Tammie, a Life Member [so] we just knew she’d be looking down on us when we won the Grand Final.
“The team that won those three Premierships did so with just 10 players across that time. They didn’t train much but had an ability to work together as a team on the court and enjoy each other’s friendship off the court at the local dances. This was the way small towns and clubs operated back in the 1950s and early 60s.
“These days things are a bit different in that not many of our players actually live in Catani – they travel from Warragul, Drouin, Garfield, Pakenham, Koo Wee Rup, Berwick and Cranbourne, and some [travel] from Burwood and Cheltenham to all play for the Club! But many of our players have been with us for at least three to five years, forming friendships that will last forever. In fact, six of the nine A Grade Premiership players from last year all played juniors for Catani. We always say – once you come to the club, it’s hard to leave!”
The unfurling of any Premiership flag is a big deal, but with teams representing Catani having only appeared in 17 Grand Finals throughout their storied history (five of those in 2019), resulting in a total of seven Premierships (two in 2019), this weekend was set to be particularly significant.
“We had big plans to unfurl the flags together after the B Grade game and before the A Grade game this weekend,” Banbury continued. “I’ve watched our footballers have that honour a few times and it certainly brings a crowd to the first home game. It makes it all the more sweeter knowing people are coming to watch the flag being unfurled [in Round 1] and pay respects to the year that was.
And I think you generally will play harder knowing you have to win that first game of the new season with the flag flying.”
“The [Catani] footy boys were keen to be a part of the ceremony before their match started as well, and we had a few surprises as to who was going to unfurl the flag; connecting the Premierships of the 1958-1960 era to the teams of 2019. Hopefully we can do that when we get the chance, once coronavirus is done with and we can all return to playing netball.”
Like all netballers across the state – and the world over – Banbury is missing not just physicality of getting out on the netball court, but the social connection of it as well.
“Young people rely on their social media a lot, but they still rely on their connections and friendships at school and at their netball club. It doesn’t matter if you’re 13, 23 or, like me, 43, the netball club is a place we love to be around with our friends, parents, family, and supporters.
“In small regional towns this is often how the town comes together – training on Thursday nights and game day on Saturdays. You could be in Minyip or Bunyip, Katunga or Koo Wee Rup, it would be almost exactly the same on a Thursday and Saturday for a netball club. Someone would open up the club, the juniors would arrive for training, balls and cones and ladders everywhere with the seniors arriving later and finishing training before the lights are turned off, with the equipment gathered for an away game or the rooms cleaned for Saturday morning.
“It’s extremely hard at the moment, especially leading into what would have been Round 1 this weekend. But we have great coaches and committee, and we’re using social media and other digital means to stay connected with weekly fitness challenges and wellbeing checklists, as well as at home training sessions connected to Zoom on Thursday nights, when training would have normally been on. We’re still encouraging our players to be in club kit and log on and be a part of the club – albeit virtually!”
And will there still be a flag unfurling once our world returns to some kind of normality?
“Absolutely!” Banbury exclaimed. “We’ve waited 59 years to unfurl this flag, and although COVID-19 is making us wait even longer…we’ve waited this long, so we can wait a little longer! I feel our community will come out in force to finally see the flag unfurled and girls back on the netball court playing the game many of us love.”
