Anna Sheryn - The Netball Practice Bible: Essential Drills, Session Plans and Coaching Advice

England's Bianca Chatfield (C) vies with Australia's Tegan Caldwell (R) during a Netball Group B Preliminary Round match between Australia and England at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, on July 26, 2014.

Photo courtesy of ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP/Getty Image s.

CONTENTS

Thank you to all Craven Dragons netballers for their enthusiasm, commitment and determination to have fun and enjoy our netball. That Craven Dragons is a friendly, welcoming club is all down to every one of you. A special thank you to our daughter Livvie Sheryn, who is our willing netball guinea pig and all-round support on and off the court. It is a pleasure to play with her and every other Dragon.

This book comes from personal experience of coaching netball in primary and secondary schools as a volunteer mum and establishing and growing a club from an idea to what is now one of the largest and happiest clubs in the locality. Every week over fifty seniors, cadets, juniors and back-to-netballers train, play and laugh (we laugh a lot), and most sections have waiting lists of girls and women who are keen to come and find out what all the fuss is about. In school holidays we run netball camps, we have charity mixed netball tournaments and are proud to have funded a number of our girls through coaching and umpiring qualifications so as they grow and travel they can enjoy their sport and in some small way continue the Dragons movement.

We continue to support netball in local schools, coaching all ages in school lessons and in after school clubs where girls and boys enjoy a fun-filled approach to netball skills and physical activity. We also offer support to teachers, providing coaching expertise and the opportunities to develop local competitions through matches and tournaments.

Working in school clubs and during the first five seasons that the Craven Dragons club has been in existence, we have learnt a huge amount of what works and what doesnt when it comes to getting children and women interested in sport. This book is our opportunity to share some of this learning and to offer a resource and reference for those involved with any type of netball, club or school-based, and looking for ideas both on and off court.

where it all began

I have been playing netball all my life and I love it. I began coaching at university as an enthusiastic youngster and have developed my coaching skills over the years, volunteering in my childrens schools and supporting the coaching team at county training. My experience is proof that netball is a great sport for everyone, from boys and girls growing up to back-to-netballers who havent played for years, and provides a wonderful way of meeting new friends, keeping active and having fun.

Back in 2004 work led us to move from our home in Shropshire where there was a thriving netball scene with club and county well supported local leagues were bustling and provided an outlet for all talents and ages. While the move was absolutely right for us and very exciting, leaving all that behind was definitely a wrench.

The good news seemed to be that in Yorkshire we found a very sporty county with plenty of netball and a large number of clubs and leagues based around the major towns, so finding a new netball club should have been straightforward. However, I soon came to appreciate just how big Yorkshire is, and as beautiful our new home was, nestling on the outskirts of the Dales National Park, gaining access to netball required a significant amount of travelling to the towns to find a league in which to play. When I did find a team most didnt train or practise and one or two were less than welcoming.

With a young family growing rapidly and work placing greater demands on my time netball was becoming harder and harder to prioritise sacrilege I know. So after the first two years in our new home, while I was running a healthy netball club at our local primary school, the realisation beginning to dawn on me was that my relationship with netball as a player might no longer be sustainable. I tried other sports and activities but the absence of the social network that comes with a team sport was leaving a big hole; I was missing my old friends, my sport and was struggling to feel settled in our new environment.

One evening in January 2008 I was at a particularly low ebb and bemoaning the fact that my netballers in school and college (I had set up a netball academy at a local sixth form college) didnt have anywhere to go to develop their netball when Chris suggested to me (although challenged is probably a more accurate term) that if there isnt a local club then maybe I should stop whinging and get on and create one; I couldnt be the only one who wanted access to netball in our region.

And so it began.

The years that followed were certainly not without setbacks and challenges, and like everything worthwhile it has demanded persistence and belief. Even as we write this, new challenges have presented themselves but I know that I will not be meeting these as an individual but as part of a thriving club full of women and girls that share my vision and that will do for me.

Anna Sheryn, November 2014

Netball is a fantastic, competitive team sport played by over one million women and girls each week in the UK alone. Accessible to all ages and abilities, netball is a skilful, physical, athletic game that provides opportunities for both social, fun activity as well as competing at the highest levels.

The aim of this book is to give coaches, teachers and parents a resource to construct effective drill sessions to introduce young, and not so young, players to netball and encourage those women who have played at school to come back to this fantastic sport. We also share our experience of starting and growing a netball club for all ages, independent of school, giving lots of girls and women the chance to develop their love of netball, keep active and healthy and make new friends.

It is important for all netballers to be able to consistently perform the simple things well, and learning good habits at the start will provide a good foundation for any player. The drills included are designed to introduce the basic skills and concepts and include the common themes of movement, core passing and catching, and attacking and defending skills. Some drills therefore cover the same skill elements in a slightly different way, helping to add some variety to keep the sessions interesting. Remember, the key objective of any practice session is to ensure the players want to come back for the next one.

Any netball experience in a players early years can determine whether they continue to play (at any level) into adult life, and also has the potential to influence their view of sport in general; this can be seen as an enormous responsibility or a real opportunity. It can certainly provide some wonderful rewards and a huge amount of satisfaction.

All players, irrespective of age, need to have fun and enjoy their netball, which includes their training. For younger players it is important not to burden them with abstract concepts or complicated tactics that they will not understand or be able to perform, which could potentially erode their confidence. This can also apply to the not so young, and for this reason there is a strong sense of fun running through all the drills and the opportunity to introduce a little imagination. If they can learn and not notice they are doing so, while enjoying themselves, you have succeeded.