Selection for County Development Squads

Commonwealth Games Netball - ENGLAND WIN BRONZE MEDAL

EYSC - England Young Supporters Club

Fundraising Ideas

Publicity

How do the new Rules Work?

TRAINERS, Don't to fooled by the advertising

HOW TO PLAN YOUR LEAGUE MATCHES

YOU MUST MAKE PRIOR APPLICATION, YOU CANNOT JUST TURN UP 

In a real upset for netball, England secured a 2 goal (56 - 54) win over South Africa to win the first ever Commonwealth Games Bronze Medal. For almost 20 years, England have been the world's number 4 netball team. With the return of South Africa to world sport, it looked for a while as if England would drop to fifth but to defeat the world number 3 team was a remarkable achievement for coach Mary Beadwood. One must also feel for the Jamacians who, over the past few years, have lost key and potential players to American Basketball (In Kuala Lumpar they could only muster a squad of 11).

The quarter scores were: England 17 - South Africa 11; South Africa 17 - England 10; England 19 - South Africa 13; South Africa 13 - England 10. Making the final score England 56 - South Africa 54.

In the final, at the end of the third quarter both teams were drawn on 31 - 31. Australia however proved to be the better side and finished Gold medallists by beating New Zealand (who take the Silver Medal) 42 Goals to 39. The quarter scores were: Australia 12 - New Zealand 12; Australia 12 - New Zealand 7; Australia 7 - New Zealand 12; Australia 11 - New Zealand 8.

The England schedule was as follows:

Monday 14 September England 51 - Barbados 29

Tuesday 15 September England 52 - Jamaica 51

Wednesday 16 September England 62 - Canada 32

Thursday 17 September England 63 - Malaysia 19

Friday 18 September England 29 - Australia 66 - ouch

Saturday 19 September Top team from Group A (Australia) play the second team from Group B (South Africa) and the Top team from Group B (New Zealand) play the second team from Group A. (England). Results: Australia 68 - South Africa 38 and New Zealand 70 - England 30

Sunday 20 September - Rest Day

Monday 21 September - "Finals Day". England 56 - South Africa 54 (England win the Bronze Medal). Australia 42 - New Zealand 39 (Australia win the Gold Medal and New Zealand collect the Silver)

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Be one of the first, join the Official All England Netball Association " ENGLAND YOUNG SUPPORTERS CLUB" Send your name, address (include your postcode), telephone number and a cheque for £12 (payable to ANEA LTD) for your first year's membership to:

EYSC, ANEA, Netball House, 9 Paynes Park, HITCHIN, Hertfordshire, SG5 1EH

What your membership gets you:

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At about this time of year, many club and association committees hold their Annual Meetings and those members who can be bothered to turn up, vote to appoint a committee for the forthcoming season/year. Undoubtably one of the most contentious items on the agenda would have been the financial report. Was there a healthy bank balance? Were members contributing too much? Did existing funds and projected income cover all that the committee planned to do in the year ahead? Did other discussions have financial implications? Did someone suggest supporting a new section to enable groups not currently playing netball to participate? Was there a request to replace worn out kit/equipment?

Some times a committee is able to soothe away such fears and demonstrate that fees only need to go up a small amount to enable the committee to do all that is expected of it and remain solvent. Unfortunately what usually happens is that it becomes clear that the committee need to embark on some fund-raising activities. If this all sounds familiar then you may find the following suggestions of interest.

I would like to thank Debbie, committee members from the East Grinstead Junior Netball League and the Imberhorne School PTA for their ideas and suggestions. There must be many other ideas; if you can contribute to them please do drop me a line.

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 There is a particular truism about publicity. If a job is worth doing then it is worth doing properly: there is nothing worse than bad publicity. In this age of "New Labour," "New Britain" new publicity seems to be linked inextricably with Spin-Doctors and the idea that "putting some gloss" on a story is wrong. People have been doing it for years; during the 1939-1945 World War it was called "Propaganda." The reality is of course that publicity is very much an art form rather than some exact science. The hints and tips below are those picked up over several years as the Publicity Secretary of the East Grinstead Junior Netball League as well as working for a number of years in the Marketing Department of a national parcel carrier.

Before you set out to publicise any event/story you need to be clear to whom the story is directed. Is it to inform? Is it to encourage participation? Is it aimed at existing members, lapsed members or potential members? All require a different approach. This article is aimed at helping you improve how you communicate ideas/suggestions about your club or local association.

USING NATIONAL TELEVISION/RADIO/NEWPAPERS

Generally a no-go area for clubs, district or regional associations seeking publicity. This is exclusively the territory of the national association. They either have a small PR department as part of the head office team or (as in the case of All England) have a relationship with a specialist sporting PR Company.

REGIONAL TELEVISION

The thing with television is that it's about images; if you don't have a good strong visual image your story will not make it on screen. TV companies tend increasingly to feature bad or unpleasant news. One June weekend over 30,000 people cycled the 54 miles from London's Clapham Common to Brighton (as they have done for the past 12 years). This did not get a mention on either the main BBC or ITN news programmes. This is what the BBC London & South News Report carried in its 5-minute slot after the main evening news:

If you do have a local TV Channel that will give you publicity make sure that you can always provide them with a good quality colour photograph  which they can use as a background image to the broadcaster. However make sure you have the copyright to use the picture in the first place. Local newspapers can get really upset if they suddenly see their pictures produced elsewhere without their knowledge.

LOCAL RADIO

The thing with radio is that it depends of stories with a (relatively) strong mentally visual image. For this reason a list of results does not make good radio. What might work, is a telephoned report of a key match. No more than about 45 seconds with an indication of what was special about the match, who the main players were and what the effect of the result is (move to top of division? Win league etc. etc). Useful to publicise a future match/event especially if you can afford to offer them a couple of free tickets to use in a competition.

LOCAL NEWSPAPERS

These are likely to publish anything you send them. However a sub-editor, with no knowledge of netball, is likely to change it a great deal if there is pressure on space. You can get round this by following these few simple rules:

NEWLETTERS

Probably the most miss-used method of communication. Most word processors these days have a help file/template/wizard for producing newsletters. Do make use of them. Never go beyond 4 sides of A4 and select a font size of at least 10 point (12 is better). Use a column layout (two will do nicely) rather than this style (of going from one side to the other). Try to include a range of items and avoid too many appeals for help/money etc. If possible include league tables or forthcoming fixtures, this means that members will at least look through it to see how their team is doing!

HANDBOOKS

Again with modern technology/photocopying it is possible to produce a reasonable handbook without massive costs. By reducing A4 size down to A5 you'll get 4 pages on one sheet of A4 if printed in landscape. If you do this, remember to increase your font size (14 point should be ok in most type styles). Most leagues have their own rules which amplify the national rules (For example ours say that the team that wins the toss may use their ball for the first and third quarters whilst their opponents can elect to use their ball in the second and final quarters. If there is a clash of bibs or uniform colours it is the home team that must change etc, etc. These are all important things which could easily be put down in print and re-used each year provided you don't accidentally zap the file off your system!

POSTERS

Try to ensure that any posters you produce are not too "busy". There is nothing worse than a poster so crammed with information that you don't know where to start. There are a couple of very good netball posters around at the moment to which you can add a "flash" over one corner or across the bottom with your message. For use in sports centres and schools you can do a very reasonable poster on a home PC (in A4 size) and then use a photocopier to enlarge it up to A3. (The Microsoft clipart volleyball picture passes for a netball much better than the football version does). If possible, try to have a supply of A5 leaflets in an adjacent rank. If you need a small rack, try some of the retailers in your area they usually get inundated with them from suppliers trying to promote some new product or other and will only be too happy to let you have one or two.

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 HOW DO THE NEW RULES WORK?

-DELETED- (Irrelevant now the rules have changed again)

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A randomly selected group of healthy men were recently used by Montreal's McGill University to test their reaction to jump landing onto different surfaces. In fact three of the four test surfaces were all coated in an identical 2.5cm polymer layer. The testers where told differing facts about the surfaces, one was highly impact absorbent, that a second had very poor impact absorption whilst neutral information was given on the third. The tests revealed that the greatest impacts were made on the step with the coating suggested as being "impact absorbent" the lightest impacts were made on the uncoated step. This information was used to try and validate the results of research carried out on the 5000 participants of a 16-kilometre race at Berne in Switzerland.

 What researches there had discovered was that those runners wearing the most expensive trainers were more than twice as likely to injure their feet than runners wearing less expensive makes. The McGill research, published recently in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, believes that athletes are being misled by what sports footwear can do for the wearer by expensive and exaggerated advertising claims. The research also highlighted the fact that loyalty to a particular brand name also carried with it increased levels of injury. The report suggests that trainers were used differently in relation to expectations raised by advertising.

 In one section the report says, "Expensive footwear is subject to extremely deceptive advertising. It is advertised to improve protection over cheaper products by incorporating new features that protect, and more advanced safety technology. Yet epidemiological data indicates that users of more expensive footwear are injured more frequently. Expensive shoes account for a 123 percent extra frequency of injury."

 The Consumers Association whose report into trainers appeared in the September 1997 edition of Which? also supports the McGill research. Their report recommended as Best Buys the Nike Air Contrail (at about £40) for runners, the Reebok Cathexis Mid (at about £50) for aerobics and the Adidas Speed Trainer (again at about £50) for general cross-sport use.

 A recent BBC "Watchdog" report pointed out that the same manufacturers who produce trainers for both Nike and Reebok produce Marks and Spencer trainers (at about £18). The report (from memory) arose from the fact that one batch of M&S trainers appeared to have the Nike "tick" logo on them.

 I talked these issues through with our club physio. Her advice was never wear worn out trainers, and wear socks to ensure a good firm fit. If you're going to do a lot of running then try to get the laces tighter near at the top end of your trainers, whereas for a game a netball they should be firmly laced up their full length. She finished up with her usual stern warning not to start a game unless properly warmed up and stretched! With advice that recent thinking saw positive benefits after a game from having a gentle warm down with stretching out of leg, shoulder and arm muscles.

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FIRST - Establish the number of teams. (This item is based on 12)

SECOND - Calculate the number of matches that can be played at anyone time. This is simply half the total of teams (In a group of 12 teams, the maximum number of matches that could be played at one time is 6).

THIRD - Work out the number of courts available. Thus if 3 courts are available, then 6 teams can play at one time. Two sessions would be needed for all the teams to play. If you have 4 courts then you could have 8 teams play in the first session and 4 teams play in the second. If you have an odd number of teams then one team will always have a "no-game" week.

FOURTH - Calculate how much time is available (this may be determined as much by what you can afford to pay for, as the availability of courts). Thus if you can only afford 2 hours then the matches could be four quarters of 10 minutes (Total playing time is 40 minutes on court plus two 3 minute and one 5 minute break, a total time of 51 minutes. Leaving just 9 minutes for injury time and the changeover between the two sessions). If you wanted to play 15 minute quarters you would need to allow 60 mins on court plus 11 mins for breaks and 9 minutes for injury time and changeover, a total 1 hr 20 mins. Realistically you will probably find that you have to hire courts in 30 minute sessions and would end up having to hire the courts for 3 hours.

FIFTHLY - Calculate how many matches in total you need to play. This is half the total sum of all the teams multiplied by the total of all the teams minus 1 (a team cannot of course play itself!) Mathematically this is expressed as [n * (n-1)/2]. So for 12 teams this works out at 12 * 11/2 = 132/2 = 66 matches. Further divide this by the number of matches you play each week. So if you have 12 teams, you already know that you can only play 6 matches a week, thus the 66 matches would need 11 weeks.

LASTLY - Probably in most people eyes the most difficult task, work out the matches. For which you need the following grid:

The first thing that you notice is that both team 1 and team 12 appear in the greatest number of boxes. Therefore you should start where these two teams meet; in the bottom left hand corner. Row (k), Column (p) then work your way diagonally across the grid. This gives the following matches:

1 v 12 - 2 v 11 - 3 v 10 - 4 v 9 - 5 v 8 and 6 v 7 (marked yellow in the grid below)

Then you get the second round of matches by starting at row (k) column (q) working diagonally across the grid. However this only gives 5 matches. The sixth match is to be found in column (p) and must be between 1 and 7 to give the following matches:

2 v 12 - 3 v 11 - 4 v 10 - 5 v 9 - 6 v 8 and 1 v 7 (marked green in the above grid)

The third round matches are on the grid below marked in light blue. They follow the same principal of starting in the next available square in row (k). The sixth game is found in column (p) and is between teams 1 and 2. The fourth round matches are marked in pink and start in the next blank square along the bottom row. This time there are only three matches so the remaining two will be found to the left of the column you started from (s). The four teams not playing are 1, 2, 3 & 8. Since 1 and 2 have already played, the possible permutations are 1 v 3 and 2 v 8 (as shown) or you could have played 1 v 8 and 2 v 3, but bear in mind all the subsequent matches in this example will then need to be changed!

The fifth round matches are shown above in dark blue whilst the sixth round matches are shown in red. Notice how they follow the same right-hand diagonal pattern.

The sixth and seventh groups follow the same diagonal pattern (The first 6 rounds have been omitted for clarity):

As do the eighth, the ninth and the final groups.

This system works on any number of teams, all you have to do is list them out in a grid and always start in the bottom left hand corner. If you want any other worked examples do drop me a line.

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