NETBALL, GREAT GAME! (Netball)

Name: melliej

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Product:	Netball
Date:	12/07/03 (413 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It keeps you REALLY fit, It's great fun, It's cheap - £3 per player per game

Disadvantages: NONE!

I've always been quite healthy and try to keep myself fit. Over the years I've veered from one health craze to the next, from aerobics (with leg warmers), to legs bums and tums, to step, with a bit of callenetics thrown in too. For one reason or another I've got fed up with each of them after a period of time- usually getting fed up with the same monotonous routines and music, or in the case of step, it did my knees in!

A few friends and I then heard that a local sports centre was setting up a netball league. 'Netball' we laughed, what a soppy game! Our minds were cast back to school days of P.E. lessons on a windy afternoon, wearing regulation black knickers, a school issue sports skirt, and a grumpy P.E teacher with a whistle around her neck, watching us throw the ball everywhere but where it should be! 'Netball' we thought, that wouldn't keep you fit, far too namby pamby! How wrong we were...........

We rustled together a team from local mums, and entered division five, the lowest one available. The first two or three games were poor. We had training sessions in the pub, hunched over a rules handbook, and slowly we improved. To start with most of the players were more interested in the pub afterwards, so we ditched those, and finally got ourselves a good quality team, and renamed ourselves ' Magnificent seven'! If you think thats bad, you should see the names of the other teams we play-'Half a larger and a packet of crisps' to name but one!

As we improved, we rose through and up the divisions to settle at division two with the premier but a notch away!
We found netball wasn't namby pamby at all, but a very fast game, where you need a really high standard of general fitness to keep up, and it's much, much faster than I ever remember playing at school. The court is divided into three segments, and as a general summary, each one of the seven players are allowed to play within two
thirds of the court., which is an awful lot of running about! The game lasts thirty minutes, fifteen each way, and the aim of the game is to score as many goals as you can. Most players of any standard usually end the game with a face as red as a beetroot, having sweated away a pint!

It's a really fun game, and I've certainly noticed my fitness level increase. The main bonus for me is that you don't get bored because of the fast pace!

Since having my children I have suffered a long spell of having a really bad back, and painful sciatica, but since I've been playing netball regularly, it has improved 500%, which my specialist says is surely a result of regular excercise and movement. The advantages are that anyone of any age can play, our team range from age 28 to 58, while other teams sport both younger and older players, although I have to say that you don't see many of school leaving age playing, so don't be put off by feeling too old, go for it!

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