2003-05-04

The latest craze amongst ladies in their late twenties (and those who have just turned 30 cough, cough) is a little Aussie team sport called NETBALL!! No longer is netball the bastion of ponytailed, tanned, ultra-pleated skirted young ladies! It has been reclaimed by real girls wearing crappy converse sneakers, torn combat pants, Tshirts with potentially offensive motifs and no freakin' ponytails. Well, not as many.

About two months ago, I received a message on my phone from Ms CC, asking if I would be interested in a netball team. Goodness! What a thought! I agreed and turned up to the first game, wearing my hot pink tennis skirt and knee socks - I was gonna CLAIM this netball court before I even stepped upon it. I had no clue who was on my team, but was very happy to find that Mel and Ali were also playing (the three of us live within 10 houses of each other in lovely Gipps St). CC, Angela, Lisa, Gilli and Mel were also on the team. Gathered around a table, we all professed our levels of expertise in the most popular sport around. Most of us had either not played, or had minor careers in high school. It was a hotch-potch, but we were here to have fun and didn't care too much that we were destined to be flogged on a fairly constant basis. However, we had not counted on big gun Eva. Eva announced that in her high school years she been accepted into the Hunter Academy of Sport in netball, and had also played at the representative level, for many years. And she is the one who is closest to their high school years, being one of the youngest on the team. Hooray! A secret weapon!

The first several weeks we lost most games, and won one. Very happy ladies after that win. One week, we were short of players, but we are staunch and cocky rocky bitches so decided to play one person short. The collective consciousness of the team felt that this wouldn't be THAT hard. Uh, it was and we got beaten by about 20 goals.

From the very first game, we all became VERY enamoured with the concept of the team sport played indoors at a competitive level. After each game, we all hang out analysing how the game went, our opinion of the refs and the other team, as well as checking out a bit of the game after ours, for research purposes. Soon, we decided we needed to train, as we take quite some time to 'fire up' on the court. But being busy ladies, it didn't really get off the ground until last week (about Week 6 of the comp I think).

About 40mins before our game, the team meets at the Union St netball courts. In Newcastle we have quite the netball scene, with tens of all-weather netty courts that are lit up most nights and full of vital young things swinging their pony tails as they play various ball/training games. So, our team shows up and just sees a spare bit of court so we head towards it and start tossing the ball around. Very soon, we are politely asked to find somewhere else as this court is actually booked. Wow! Who would have know that you could BOOK a netball court! So in the end, our team just had to find a little patch of grass, as all the courts were booked or something.

At first we had no clue what training game to play, since we weren't exactly netball aficionados. Courtney half remembered a game, and then Eva remembered the other half. Slice the Pie is the best game ever and we played it for about 15mins. It really warmed us up and got our passes nice and warm too. Soon, it was time to head to the game, at an indoor facility about 5mins away. Its called HOWZAT. I love this shit...I also like the song "Howzat" by Sherbet in the seventies. Even if you couldn't give a fuck about cricket, don't you think its amazing and soooo culturally relevant, to write a breakup song based around cricket analogies?? I think it is clever. Indeed.

We arrived at our match to find that this weeks opponents had UNIFORMS and were really, truly half our ages (most were 15 and under, and most of us are over 28). It was a bit scary, but we felt really good and warm after training. I play wing attack, if you were wondering and I think I am pretty good at it. Not the star position (no glory of shooting goals like goal attack or goal shooter, and not the all-star that the centre should be) but a really good staunch, attacking position. My role, I feel, is to support the girls who want to shoot goals. I bring that ball right on up. As for strengths, it feels like I am good at jumping very high indeed for the ball - it feels like I am plucking it from its trajectory, saying "No ballie. You will stop here with me." To be fair, I also have my weaknesses. I am pretty crap at getting away from glue-like opposition defenders and my passing has been a bit ordinary. Well, only ordinary cuz I chuck it thinking "Yeh, Mel/Eva/whoever will run up for it", which is what I do. You can pass a ball 5m in front of me but I will probably mostly get to it.

There have been many conversations about netball whenever team mates meet, as well as to anyone who stands still enough to listen. When I hung out with Roffy for the first time in about 6 months, we talked about a few different things for awhile. But then I got on the topic of netball and I was off! For ages I raved about the team to Roffy (who knows all the girls involved) and she seemed fairly happy to listen. Ali came over last night and we chatted, predominantly about netball. CC has lauded the joys of team sports, saying “I get it. I finally get it”, in regards to the team sports concept. And she has really taken to the aggressive side of the game, flying through the air and grappling the ball from opponent’s hands. Or simply flying through the air to deliver a bit of a slap. Quite a sight.

Oh, god, am I now raving about netball?? I feel like I should stop. But I will mention that WE BEAT THE UNIFORMED YOUNG THANGS!!! As CC said "they may have youth, but we've got EXPERIENCE." And by that, she meant life experience (cuz we have little netty experience).