Not so long ago, the tiny Colac Night Netball Association in south-west Victoria called for expressions of interest from local clubs whose seasons had been shelved elsewhere.
The result: a competition that typically caters for 10 senior teams suddenly swelled to a remarkable 44 across multiple age groups. Indeed, 34 junior teams were able to start returning to the court from July 13, leading off with the understandably ecstatic 11-and-under division.
Around the same time, almost 200km away in Heathmont in suburban Melbourne, when coronavirus restrictions finally eased to allow rep training to restart in June, the Melbourne East Netball Association families were advised the sessions were optional.
From a pool of 150 players, 148 turned up on day one.
Keen? You could say that.
Statewide, amid the uncertainty cast by the COVID-19 clouds which have relentlessly hovered over both community and elite sport since the pandemic escalated, there has also been enduring hope and cautious optimism that not all of 2020 will be lost. And so it remains, despite the recent return to stage three stay-at-home restrictions in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire.
Colac's Bluewater Leisure Centre, for example, is full of beaming young faces three nights a week, even if the senior competition is, for now, back on hold.
"We started with eight teams on Monday, and the protocols and everything ran really smoothly,'' says CNNA committee member Tracey Tann. "Everyone was really happy, and we’ve had nothing but positive feedback. Text messages, Facebook posts.
“It was good to be back out there and see the kids all smiling, and I think the parents appreciated it even more than the children. It was a different environment. We didn’t have lots of people there and no siblings, so it was a bit of a quieter environment but without all the other people around there was still just the joy of netball.
"We had a lovely little time. Smiles all round.''
One of Tann’s favourite stories involves a junior team from Lorne, which usually participates in the Colac and District Football Netball League. Prior to the season getting belatedly underway, the mum organising the Lorne team telephoned Tann to say that she would be regularly assailed at school pick-ups by a flock of girls asking for a start date.
Finally they had one. Thus, lives very much based around sport could resume. Not as normal, but every little bit helps, given that netball matters so much to so many.
On July 13, Lorne's first game was against a scratch group of individuals in search of a team.
“The Lorne girls were great,'' laughs Tann. "They played against a little team whose parents rang and said their girls didn’t have a team and were desperate to play, so we formed a little team and called them 'The Misfits' and off they went and played against the Lorne team and they won 10 goals to eight and it was all very exciting!''
As hearts were warmed elsewhere, at MENA in metropolitan Melbourne, sadly, the postponement was Association-wide.
Everything was in readiness. President - and Netball Victoria board member - Kylie Spears talks proudly of a new $16.5 million stadium that opened last May and has ample space for roomy run-offs, as rep training had provided a valuable dress rehearsal for what was planned to lie ahead when 36 NetSetGO teams were scheduled to swarm back into H.E. Parker Reserve on July 17.
But, for an Association that around 1,800 players from 14 clubs call home, and where all the protocols such as sanitised balls and goal post padding, spectator limits and physical distancing were in place, Spears says the most likely re-start date will now come after the next batch of school holidays, on October 3.
As a self-described 'absolute netball tragic', Spears’ enthusiasm is palpable, and her optimism unshakeable. Once a player, the mother-of-two is now an administrator presiding over a competition that started in February, was postponed in March and again in July, but hopes to resume to finish off one long season - rather than the usual two - in December.
"We played term one, and we’ll play term four. That’s a season! We will have played a full season,'' says Spears.
"It’s been spread, but it’s still been possible, and we’re back to Zoom training for all our reps and and we’ve encouraged all our clubs to do the same, so it will happen. In my email to my clubs, I’ve said ‘when we are back - not if we are back - and we will be back...it will be awesome’.’’
Meanwhile, in regional Colac, a three-nights-a-week netball lifeline has been grasped. Gratefully.
“We really had no expectation of what was going to happen (when we asked for expressions of interest),’’ says Tann, praising the support of the venue and Colac Otway Shire as well as the local media outlets spreading the word about a season filled with excited, energetic juniors with smaller feet, but so very happy just to be lacing up their netball shoes.
“The community’s motivation has been that we just feel like we want to fill the gap. If other Associations are unable to, and we can, then we’ll offer it. We’re just filling a need.’’
Or facilitating a want. For netball to return. Which it has. Not everywhere, but in regional Victoria, at least.
It's a start. The moral of this story being that some netball is always better than none at all.
Written by Linda Peace. Image thanks to the Colac Herald.
