It’s time for netball to have its Lionesses moment
17 March 2025, 08:17
Did you see the Super Cup netball at the weekend? It’s likely you didn’t, as although netball is the UK’s most played women’s team sport, with millions playing at all levels, it’s still noticeably lacking from our headlines and screens.
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2025 is set to be a blockbuster year for women’s sport in London, with the Women’s Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham, women’s tennis returning to Queen’s Club for the first time in over 50 years, and the Women’s Super League football growing at an unprecedented rate. But netball, which has turned professional this year, isn’t necessarily on your radar.
Netball remains the UK’s most popular women’s team sport, with millions playing at all levels and young girls able to play across the UK no matter their economic background, but a lack of coverage across the TV, radio and newspapers means the sport still lacks a major public fanbase and a widely known squad of iconic players for young players to aspire to. Due to this and a lack of significant career prospects within the sport in the past , we’ve seen more and more girls drop out of netball early.
I know first-hand from playing and coaching that playing a sport as a child leads to the development of skills that allow adults to flourish. At London Pulse, our squad are not just netball players; most of them have secondary careers to support their love of netball, so we have lawyers, teachers, students all on the squad. EY’s Women Athletes Business Network and espnW actually found that 94% of C-suite women have played sports in their past.
This year, we want to show young girls that their love of netball doesn’t have to end when they leave their school team, so our sponsor Edwin Doran has launched the #FillTheCopperBox initiative as just one of the ways of bringing in new fans. We’re aiming to fill all seats at the Copper Box Arena for the iconic London netball derby at 7pm on 28 March 2025, sure to be a nail-biting match between London Pulse and London Mavericks.
Over the past 50 years sending school netball teams on international tours, the Edwin Doran team saw thousands of young girls hone their skills, build resilience and self-confidence, develop social skills, and form life-long friendships during school netball, only to be forced to drop their ambition of continuing the sport at a professional level due to a lack of career prospects.
We’ve all seen the incredible work done by the Lionesses who’ve proven that a football career is possible after years being overshadowed by the men’s game. We’re determined that as netball turns professional, we can start to build a similar group of role models in the spotlight for school-age girls to look up to.
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Natalie Peperell is Assistant Coach at London Pulse Super League Team
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