If you come from a small country town like me you are more than likely to be in some way linked to the netball/football scene that encompasses the air every winter. Whilst in their teens most of my friends spent their Saturday mornings pulling up sports undies and lacing the worlds whitest net burners up, I was pulling on my pink leotard, forcing my hair into a tight bun and prancing my way into 9:00am ballet classes. The idea of playing netball never crossed my mind, until puberty hit. Puberty vs Leotard = I don’t fucking think so. And so my dancing days were over. I was never going to dance Swan Lake anyway,so I didn’t mourn the lycra to much. Years went on and I found that I could replace dancing with piano, singing, drama, tennis and bountiful McDonalds trips. Netball only became a part of my life when I started going to my friends games. I wasn’t really that interested, due to the fact that I couldn’t understand what could be remotely fun about playing a game that involved no touching and turning in little circles to find someone to pass to…(now fully aware that the technical term for this is ‘pivotting’.)… only to throw the ball into a too-small net, run backwards hands in the air an do it all over again. Nevertheless, I wanted to support my buddies…2 of whom were particularly good. I knew that I couldn’t avoid the game forever, and in my second year at Uni I was forced asked to play in a social team with some of my closest friends.
my netball team 'the silent ninja's' in all our glory
Although I only played a handful of games (I slept through most), I have to admit it was damn delicious fun. I secretly believed after years of freezing my fanny off at other people’s games, some higher power would reward me with an amazing netballing ability that would rival any of the current thunderbirds skills. Alas this wasn’t this case, and to put it bluntly…I was shit. My teammates thoroughly encouraged me every time I stepped onto the court, whilst the umpires sympathetically coached me through the rules of the game whilst I played. Our team itself consisted of my boozed up uni friends, most of whom were usually pissed before stepping on the court. Two of them in particular, loved to fill up their drink bottles with cask wine (sounds better than ‘GOOON’) and red cordial. Although this sounds like a recipe for disaster, it seemed to aid us by consistently putting off the other teams with drunken lay-ups (some people channeled their inner LeBron) and the general alcoholic stench excreting from the pores of my oh so professional team mates. Without a doubt the best player on the team was a male, and for the purpose of this blog we will call him Glen. Glen was the best person to watch play netball, and would rival even the bitchiest girl from the opposing team. He seemed to own that ball, and he knew it too, with every eye roll, glare and goal that accompanied his existence on the court. Subsequently Glen has gone onto bigger and better things in the netballing world ^claps^. The funny thing is we were actually pretty shit hot (clearly due to my skillz yo), and wound up in the grand final…only losing due to the giant Goal shooter people had fondly named ‘Boo’…there nothing boo-ish about him. We also had our one supporter, Taiggan ‘tay tay’ Pomery, who due to past knee injuries couldn’t lend herself to playing in the team itself. However on a weekly basis (maybe twice) she would clap lazily from the sidelines, pretending to watch whilst really using the time to think about what purchase she would next make at Marion shopping centre.
taiggan tay tay pomery, cheering for us...
At the end of the season, the organiser of the social netballing scene awarded me with a Mcdonalds Voucher that read
To Lizzie Coke
For trying to catch the ball with her head multiple times during the game.
THANKS Dave, that seared chicken snack wrap sure was worth the head trauma....
All in all my introduction to netball was a positive one. I haven’t played since my inaugural season in the silent ninja’s and I must admit I do miss those wintery nights, where for one hour we could pretend we were athletic superstars and where wearing leggings as pants was considered acceptable.
'great defence lizzie'PART II of this blog will explore the many aesthetically pleasing parts of the netballing world.
EXAMPLE: netball supporter’s attire:
Acceptable
trackpants, hoodie, uggboots a scarfe perhaps
Bordeline Skanky but still acceptable
Skinny leg jeans, singlet, jay jay’s brown leather hooded jacket.
Plain stupid, ugly and seen way to much
black leggings, singlet, cute little white shoes, full face of BYS makeup and pneumonia.
And that’s just the mum’s…
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