The Netball Show
S7 Ep52: Blitz Netball (12th Aug 2024)
(upbeat music) Daisy France is blaming here. Online at flyhork.com, you can find the full range of their netball products, including hoodies, leggings, netball, and so much more. There are even kit packages that suit everybody available in sizes UK 4 to 24, and lots of different lengths too. Plus, we can even send you a sample pack for a returnable fee to try some of the range. Netball show with flyhork, raising the bar for netball and winning sports. (upbeat music) - Netball show with flyhork, Keira Edwards, you're the head of participation at Will's Netball. I want to speak to you today about a real positive initiative. Blitz netball, and it's between new and street games. So I suppose the first question, what's it all about? - So Blitz netball is all about creating a more informal, accessible version of the sport that's delivered on young people's terms. So we really want to make netball get to as many people as possible. We love the sport, and traditionally, actually, it's been quite reserved, but as a certain type of person, and we'd love for everyone to get the same joy and happiness out of netball that we do. So we partnered with street games who are brilliant UK wide charity, who specialize in taking sport to low-income communities and underserved communities, and allowing children and young people in those communities to really engage with sport that they may otherwise not get the chance to. Yeah, so Blitz netball for us was about partnering with street games, seeing what we could do with netball to turn into something a bit more chill. So think like three by three basketball that you can just pick up in the park and play, that's what we wanted for netball. And so we've worked with street games who are experts in this, and I've done this with multiple other sports to do this. - Some of the advantages then, and I mean, I hate to use the phrase, but it's almost jumpers for goal posts. - Yeah, no, absolutely. We developed it with young people. So there was three or four sessions, where we took some ideas to young people who come from some of these communities already, we did it in North Wales, we thought it was really important to take it somewhere else in Wales. And Phil Yarrington, a Welsh feather and a card of dragon, and was leading on this project for me. So actually the base level of netball came from Phil's brain, and these young people that we call young advisors took those activities, saw what worked for them, built on them, there's some activities in the Blitz netball activator that just come straight out of these young people's heads. So it's just breaking down the sport a bit. Making it simple, a bit more fun, absolutely very informal, so it can be played anywhere. As you say, Andy, jumpers for goal posts, we've considered what they call muggers, so multi-use games arenas. You know, the outside courts with metal all the way around them that you see with basketball posts, so there were a lot of those in communities, in places that we wanna get this to, and so we've considered, well, those basketball posts are there, they might not be netball posts, but we can kind of use them in a similar way. So we've made it flexible so you can incorporate those basketball posts, you can incorporate jumpers for goal posts. If you've got a bin or like a bucket, you can incorporate that. So really it's about not being strict, enabling people to play it wherever they are. - And like you said as well, obviously, getting people right across Wales involved and giving them the opportunity to get involved, regardless of whether or not they're on a low income. - Absolutely, you know? - Netball is more than just our traditional club and league structure, they're very, very important, and they're really the core of what we do, but it's more than that, and we want it to be wider and broader than that. And this really takes it to people's doorsteps and allows them to understand maybe a bit more about the sport than they would before and engage with it. And then if you put on top of that, all the brilliant additional coverage that Netball's getting in the media that we're seeing with the Super League, you know, how brilliant the World Cup was, et cetera, et cetera. - Hopefully that rise of media coverage can bind whether it's making the sport more accessible and taking it for these young people will help it grow in areas that it would never have touched before. - Will there be resources online or is this obviously very, a bit of a sign up? - Blitz Netball is a type of thing, so it's a specific game itself that we've called Blitz Netball, but then it's also an activated workshop and resources around that. So a whole load of basic skills, rules, just the key rules, you know, some people who aren't into Netball think Netball has a lot of rules. And even though us Netballers and fans don't see that, it can sometimes be a bit intimidating. So we've broken it down and worked out what the key rules are that people really need to know, you know, your footwork, et cetera, but not whacked everything in there. Anyway, so there's this workshop around the actual game and the intent for the workshop is to provide volunteers, youth, community workers, sports coaches and young leaders with ideas to help get this game out there to those young people across Wales and further afield and give them the resources to do that. So there is absolutely a workshop that you can sign up for. There's a link on our website that takes you to the Sign Up Link on Street Games website. If you wanna go straight to the Street Games UK website, there's an activated page there which has lots of sports activators, including our brand new Blitz Netball Activator. It tells you a whole load more detail about that and how new or your community group or your organization can sign up and learn all about this Activator Program and then get those resources and take it out to those communities that we want to get it into. The Netball Show is now also available via SkyHD, SkyQ and Skyglass. So let's start and we're on the podcast trail. (whooshing)
Keira Edwards is the Wales Netball head of participation - What is Blitz Netball?