The University of Manchester is an institution recently blessed with success across its sports department. The university, often praised for its academics, saw its Netball team promoted during the 23/24 season. However, they now sit winless. While promotion rarely promises the continuation of prior successes, a juxtaposition of this severity is scarcely displayed. And so, questions arose, and answers were unveiled. The missing piece? The coach.
To provide more context, the UoM Netball First Team are one of two performance team, and are the only female group within the performance programme. With this status, they attract players who later go on to represent England during international fixtures. This year, England Roses players are amongst the UoM squad. The level of this team is evidently on par with that of a performance team with many of the girls also coming from reputed netball academies and seasoned winners within the British leagues. So how has a team with such talent failed to attract a coach? Well, there’s not just one, simple answer to this fault. Instead, this issue highlights where the University of Manchester’s Sports department (UoM Sport) has failed to provide sufficient support to this performance team.
This series of unfortunate events started in the early days of summer, when everyone had forgotten about university and all that follows the September start. Everyone except the UoM Netball Club President. As club captain, she spent days on zoom calls to UoM sport, figuring out the plans for their next season. One would argue that apart from missing a few hours of that precious UV, that is what’s expected when signing up for being club president, you must make a few commitments. The
commitment of being club president is no small task, but the commitment soon began to get more and more time consuming, to the point where she felt as if she was doing more than her fair share.
The weekend prior to preseason came around and so did the obligatory questions and follow ups ensuring that all was in order. The simple question: ‘is there going to be a coach?’ was met with the not so simple: ‘we’ll let you know by Sunday’, an answer which doesn’t help the nerves of the newly inaugurated president. This trend of holding on continued and the club committee was left to be the messenger to the players. And so, suddenly, a performance team, one with a membership fee of £305, was left with no coach and minimal contact from UoM Sport regarding the hiring process of a coach.
This lack of communication continued throughout the beginning of the season with the girls ending up with a coach-less preseason and concerns with how long this will continue. This mishap led to the club president having to call in her vice, an unsung hero in the battle to find their coach. Both girls frequently contacted UoM in hopes of sorting this expanding issue out and continuing with the season. Unfortunately, UoM sport made lacklustre attempts at fixing this issue, evident in their poor replies and minimal effort with their communication. This has since been addressed, and apologies have been ushered. Yet the argument remains – why this was allowed to happen in the first place?
Eventually, the efforts of the Club Committee led to hiring Manchester Thunder’s Lauren Palmer. Yet this seeming halt to the horrors was very much temporary. It was revealed that Lauren was unable to attend preseason or trials and there had been evident faults in communication of the role she was signing herself up for. After 3 weeks, Lauren had to leave, resulting in the group yet again being without a coach. At this point, the players had run tens of sessions, a preseason and trials without any help or compensation. Hence, a complaint was raised to the University to which the first team got paid £50 back from their initial £305 bill due to not having a coached preseason. However, the coach was for both 1s and 2s, and the second team received no compensation at all for the affair. This trend continued and continues to this day with Netball First Team still having no coach, ultimately being the defining factor for their unsuccessful 0-8 season.
With the season going how it did, poorly to be modest, an assessment of the situation was taken. The players were talented, no question, and this record did not reflect their squad. I asked Lisa Morton-Smith and Megan Basset, two of the key members of staff in conversation with both presidents about the struggle to sustain a coach. Lisa attributed the difficulties in availability of coaches to the irregular hours, limited financing for sport in higher education, and lack of resources to attain a coach of the necessary standard. With those in charge acknowledging their faults, promising futures for the club seemed to be set into place. Lisa aims to address the lack of coaching through funding students’ coaching qualifications.
While UoM sport have the best in mind for the players and sport in general, it often feels like the promises and aims for the programme seem empty. The poor communication seems to be a steady setback for UoM sport, and while it has improved, it still takes the committee roughly four emails to get the attention of those above. As well as this, there has been little regard and appreciation for how the UoM Netball committee members feel, working overtime in their roles alongside their studies. The frustration with the situation is more than understandable, with the committee having to complete two days of trials, a preseason, and find a coach whilst attempting to achieve success within BUCS. All this is bolstered with seemingly minimal aid from the university.
Lisa and Megan both acknowledge the faults within Netball’s season, and how much of this lies on UoM sport specifically. Their scurry for sorting the situation is noticed with the switching of members of staff involved and a push towards introducing grass roots coaching to the masses. Yet, with the Netball First Team being one of the two performance teams within the university, is the lack of a coach acceptable?
While yes, circumstances get in the way, a common standard must be maintained and held to, especially when regarding key aspects of a performance team – the highest status given to a sporting team at UoM. The way the players have soldiered on through the season is truly admirable and the professionalism the club presidents have shown is nothing short of incredible, especially when the future of the club is so unknown. The future of UoM Netball’s coaching nightmare is being worked on tirelessly behind the scenes, with the current club captains expecting to take a bit of a back seat in the process regarding next year. UoM sport have set out to improve the experience and culture around sport at the university with adjustments throughout the season but has this all been too little too late? For this season, yes, but the future of netball is being addressed through grassroots coaching whilst the club is in good hands with committee.
