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Lauren has high hoops for Wigan netball
A major youth netball competition will be
held at the Robin Park Indoor Sports Centre this weekend, thanks to the
initiative of a community sports officer who is determined to put Wigan
netball on the map.
The Greater Manchester Youth Games competition will see over 200 young
players from the ten boroughs that make up the region travel into town
this Saturday (September 1st).
The tournament was due to be held in June during the Youth Games in
Manchester but torrential rain led to it being cancelled. With little
prospect of it being rescheduled, Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust
Community Sports Officer Lauren Dobson stepped in and offered to stage
the competition here in Wigan.
Lauren says: “We did 12 weeks training with the Wigan girls ahead of the
Youth Games and they were really disappointed when the tournament was
cancelled, so I stepped in and asked if we could host it here in Wigan.
The Indoor Sports Centre is a fantastic arena for netball and it is good
that Robin Park is staging another regional event. It would have been a
real shame for the girls if it hadn’t been re-scheduled.”
In her role as a Community Sports Officer, Lauren is responsible for
developing netball across the borough and she has set about the job
vigorously. Since starting in 2006, significantly more women are playing
the sport across the borough. The number of girls training with Wigan
Juniors has risen from an average of 30 to 120 alone!
More netball is being played in schools, which are now feeding players
into local clubs, giving talented youngsters the opportunity to play at
a higher level at an earlier age. The next stage in the development of
the game locally will come with the establishment of an elite academy
for the most talented young players at Leigh Sports Village, when it
opens later this year.
Lauren says: “Netball is now being screened on Sky Sports and the
profile of the game has never been higher. Our aim is to ‘Get Wigan
Active’ and we want to capitalise on the increased coverage of netball
by getting as many people as possible playing it. We also want to make
sure we have an infrastructure to support players all the way to the top
of the game.”
Lauren and Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust are also supporting “Get Back
To Netball”, an England Netball initiative encouraging talented players
of all ages to take up the sport again. Lauren is a keen player herself.
In the coming weeks she will attend pre-season trials for Northern
Thunder and Leeds, in a bid to join fellow Wiganer Sara Bayman in the
UK’s premier netball competition, The Superleague.
Lauren adds: “My life is pretty much dedicated to netball. I’ve got a
lot out of the game and I want people here to have the opportunity to
play at all levels, so I guess I’m in the right job.”
-ends-
Notes to Editors
Further information
• For further information please contact Kennedy Stewart, Young People’s
Press Officer at Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust on (01942) 486927.
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