Playing with a mixed team for the first Netball Carnival turned out to be a memorable experience for national netball player, Desiree Tan. Organised by the Youth Council on 6 July 2003 during the regular Sports Sundays, she shares with us the heartwarming moments, both on and off court.
Having just returned from a five month long study programme overseas, the Holy Family Netball Carnival was the first time that I had the chance to play a proper netball game in quite a while. While part of me wanted to help my team win, the main motivation was just to have fun with my friends and to make new friends. Still, I was so excited I actually had to go for a run around the school before the game, just to release some of the adrenaline.
I have been playing competitive netball for the past eight years and friendly netball carnivals such as this helped me to remember just why I got into netball in the first place. Simply, it is for the love of the game.
The lightheartedness of the carnival, the laughter and camaraderie among the players reminds me of what netball essentially is. A game played as a team, a group of friends, working together and having fun in the process.
Making this a mixed carnival was a brilliant decision of the organising committee. Netball is often misunderstood as a sport just for girls. But as some of the guys who had their first taste of netball during the carnival discovered that netball can be as physically demanding and fun as any "macho guy sport".
I think one of the most fun and memorable moments of the carnival was in trying to explain the basic rules to my male team mates. Everyone had never played the game and knew none of the rules. Even with my explanations, the games were filled with laughter as the bewildered guys were often found to commit fouls because they thought they were playing soccer. At the end of the day, we won some games and lost some. But, more importantly, we all had a lot of fun and I got to know my team mates better.
I think that the games were a fun way of bringing together families, friends and people from other parishes and catholic organisations. It helped promote better communication, ways of working together, fellowship and was simply a good form of exercise to sweat and laugh away stress.
I hope that such activities will
continue and that more people will participate.