The Inaugural Netball Nations Cup is here and it's on English soil!

The event brings together four of the world’s top five teams (Australia are not partaking) as an alternative to January’s traditional Quad series format. Each team will play each other once, before a third-fourth play-off and a final to decide the winner on the last day of competition.

Following on from England's victorious commonwealth win in 2018, netball fever is spreading across the UK again - and with full force. Die-hard enthusiasts brimming with yearning youths, enlivened parents, as well as novices with a newfound interest for netball, will be watching with anticipation as the world turns their eyes to the roses to deliver a medal (in the shade of gold preferably).  Indeed, receiving a medal will not only continue to accelerate this booming sport but also present the Roses with an additional decorative piece to add to their trophy cabinet.

As the excitement builds up for the netball nations cup, here are the top 3 major netball competitions in the English sporting calendar - each featuring the highly sort after flamboyant trophies and medals that every netballer could only dream of possessing.

The Vitality Netball Superleague (VNSL) is the elite netball competition in the United Kingdom. The league comprises of ten teams from England, Wales and Scotland and runs from February to July. 

Despite netball being regarded as one of the most popular female sports in Britain, it was only until 2005 that the elite, semi-professional league came to fruition, with local leagues being the predominant form of competition. The league has since been dominated by a handful of teams at different stages, the most successful being team Bath who have won five premiership titles. Both Saracens Mavericks, Manchester Thunder and Surrey Storm have had their fair share of silver-plated success - with Surrey Storm the current reigning champions. 

The coveted Superleague trophy stands tall with its silver plated, shiny surface; synonymous to champions. Each season the superleague teams wait with anticipation to lift up the handles and be classified as the best professional team in the English netball league, with red vitality ribbons draped on either side connoting sporting prowess.

History was made in 1963 as the seaside town of Eastbourne welcomed the world for the first ever World Netball Championships (now known as the world cup). Back then, 11 teams comprised the tournament compared to the 27 teams that feature the present day ‘world cup’ as we know it. Held every four years around the globe, the world cup trophy has travelled far and wide, with locations such as Singapore, Australia, the Caribbean and Scotland playing hosts to this major tournament - before returning back to England 33 years later in 2019.

The most recent World Cup saw the Kiwi’s secure their 5th triumph, bridging their gap between the most decorated champions the Australian Netball Diamonds - leading the way in all things netball with a total of 11 wins since the tournament has begun.

Despite failing to take home the world cup trophy (as of yet), it was an English craftsman, Marcus Steel who actually created the cup, unveiling the metallic sphere to the world for the first time at the 1995 Netball World Cup. The trophy itself holds a sentimental value to the netball world, reflecting the significant change to the position of netball within the global sporting arena. During 1995, the tournament advanced from a Championship to a World Cup, following pursuit in line with the popular commonwealth sports Rugby and Cricket. Since its creation, the trophy has been proudly held aloft by six winning team Captains.

Like every tournament (well most anyway), teams in the top 3 positions are awarded with medals to commemorate their success. For the netball players, receiving their medals on the world cup podium will be the peak of their careers and the medals are specifically designed to capture this. The world cup final presents bespoke medals: bronze, silver and gold, each depicting the moment a ball enters the centre of the hoop. Utilising precision die cast tooling to achieve an open net effect intertwined with a glistening plated finish, the medals are delicately designed to capture the years of fierce training and commitment each netball player has displayed to get them to this moment. A piece of netballing history that they will take with them forever.

Netball is now one of the major sports at the quadrennial Commonwealth Games and has been since 1998. The Netball profile has, in fact, accelerated catastrophically since wonderkid Helen Housby secured a dramatic final-buzzer victory against the defending world champions, Australian, on their own home turf. Since, netball participation across Britain has skyrocketed, with many young aspirational players at grass root levels wanting to follow in the footsteps of their heroes, Housby, Gutherie and Harten.

The 2018 Commonwealth medals, designed by Delvene Cockatoo-Collins, features embroidery around the outer circles which represent the soft sand lines which shift every tide and wave - symbolic of the hosts ‘Gold Coast’ shores as well as athletic achievement. The designer intended to depict the moving tide, whereby each wave moves the sand, creating and leaving behind new lines in the sand witnessed by those present.

This continual change of tide is representative of the evolution of Athletes who are making their marks in their chosen sport. Records are made and special moments of elation celebrated as a cyclical system of stars past and present grace the world of sport. I suppose this is emblematic of the English roses triumph in the Gold Coast, where they will look down at the forever marked shells on their medals and remember the time they changed the face of Netball in Britain and gave little girls females heroines to look up to forever!

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