However many people you think there are playing netball in your neighbourhood, trust me, you have no idea. They’re like Borrowers; they’re everywhere, meeting constantly, beginners, socials, in parks and school playgrounds. I was intimidated by the opening questionnaire on Go Mammoth, which lists team sports near you. Which position did I prefer, which assumed a high level of expertise as to what WA meant (wing attack) and, implicitly, pre-existing skill. I’m not sure I know what different capabilities are required, for goal defence as opposed to wing defence, for instance: are they just temperamental?
Anyway, I hit “don’t mind”, and showed up at a primary school near my house, keeping a low profile: the last thing you want to do with a new sport is make friends. Before you know it, you’ve promised to go again the following week.
A word on this: even if you’re not at all committed to one position over any other, take five minutes to read about each role and what its area of play is. And if your memory won’t stretch to all of them, choose one, learn it and call it your metier. It is incredibly annoying if you’re the centre and constantly getting in the goal circles. You’ll lose time to penalties, get flustered, then make the same mistake again. Yes, I am speaking from bitter experience.
The session lasts 90 minutes and has more of a sporting than fitness vibe. You warm up, but the emphasis is on winning. I would recommend this strongly for people who are squeamish about self-improvement as a concept, but still want occasionally to move – which is, even after all this time, still me.
There’s a rule in netball which is not negotiable: once you have the ball, you are allowed to take only one step. You have three seconds before you shoot or pass. Maybe you remember this from school, maybe I should, maybe I never fully processed it in 1987. To me, it felt counterintuitive, even to the point of being unsportsmanlike, since surely the principle of ball games is that you get hold of the bloody thing and run? Anyway, don’t do that. And if you find it impossible to remember not to do that, it’s better if you don’t have the ball and see yourself more in a looming role.
Because netball is a non-contact sport, you cannot even mark a player with your arms out, since it’s an obstruction to do anything that results in you touching, pushing, leaning, tripping or knocking them. If you’re trying to intercept someone in possession of the ball, you can’t be within three feet of them. Reasonably enough, even at beginner level, nobody stops to explain which rule you broke; all you know is that you’re slowing everything down and everyone is cross with you.
I’m not saying I’d never do this again. Merely, I would like to do the first time again. The main exercise I got was of my cosmic shame muscles.
What I learned
Some physical traits to help you choose a position. Tall: goal attack. Fast: wing attack. Accurate, fast and strategic: centre.
• Find your nearest game through gomammoth.co.uk/netball
