By Briony Akle
Sometimes, when I have the time to head down to my local community courts at Baulkham Hills in Sydney on a Saturday morning, I am reminded of why I first fell in love with the game I am so fortunate to earn a living in.
Courts, spread as far as the eye can see, jam-packed with kids and adults participating in what I firmly believe to be Australia’s greatest national sport. Netball.
Wait, can I say national sport? Well, actually yes, I can and I’m proud to do so.
What I’m describing is not an isolated occurrence. It’s simply a picture of what’s happening in every town and region across the entire nation when our season is in full flight.
Today is International Women’s Day. To be honest, I long for a time when we don’t need to have a set day of acknowledgement because it will mean we have true equality in all walks of life. But, until we do, it’s an important platform.
I want to use today to reiterate netball’s greatest strength: its truth.
For 100 years it hasn’t just talked. It’s taken action. That action was, and continues to be, to champion Australian women.
The net results?
- The largest community sport movement in the country
- Australia’s most successful national team: the Diamonds
- The world’s greatest club netball league where only the best 80 athletes from an international playing pool of 20 million make the cut.
By any barometer that’s damn impressive and I don’t think we are loud enough when it comes calling out how special this movement we’ve created is.
Netball, especially at grassroots level in Australia, is driven by such an amazing volunteer workforce that there’s little time for back-slapping and plaudits. The sheer volume of participants and the number of competitions being run make it one of the most well-oiled machines in our society.
Its time our game had some more strut about it because these people deserve it.
No-one can deny any of the above because it’s true. Just look at what they, and our generations of elite female athletes, have built by themselves.
Today netball is a game enjoyed by people of all ages, genders and cultural backgrounds. But at its core is the unbreakable force that is the female spirit.
I saw a headline recently about another code aiming to spend $1 billion over the next decade to reach one million participants nationwide, and I thought: ‘‘hold on a second, netball already has that and is continuing to grow!’’
Netball a behemoth on the Australian sporting landscape and women built it, and I’m not afraid to say it. Let’s all say it together.
- Briony Akle is head coach of the NSW Swifts and a four-time Premiership winner with the Club. She won Premierships as a player in 2001 and 2004, and two as head coach in 2019 and 2021.
