Look around
Casting the net for future stars Caroline Ritchie-Morgan is shooting for success on court Netball is a sport that has never featured at the Olympics, but thanks to the success of the Women’s Super League and a triumph for England at this year’s Commonwealth games, netball is on the rise. The England team has just moved up to second in the world rankings for the first time, sparking a huge surge in its popularity. The number of players looking for a new club has already risen by two thousand per cent since the Roses won gold. As gold fever sparks a soaring number of youngsters signing up for netball, a leading independent school is spearheading the hunt to find the next generation of national players. Wrekin College has been named as one of the new academy schools for the netball Super League which has helped to spark a resurgence in the game. The school has invested heavily in its
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netball department, with an award-winning coach on the staff given full backing to search the UK for talented players, with boarding scholarships on offer. Caroline Ritchie-Morgan, a former Welsh Under 19 coach and former assistant coach to the senior Welsh squad, now head of girls’ games at Wrekin, is stepping up her efforts to find and coach the best players. ‘Netball has been a great game for me in terms of developing who I am and how much I have gained in life, including lifelong friends, and I can certainly see why it would be popular. It’s a great game to play.’ The numbers speak for themselves: there was a 44% increase in participation at grass roots level in the last year, with nearly 30,000 players pounding the courts across England.
