CCNA AWARDS 2022
Congratulations to all the nominees and winners of the 2022 CCNA awards.
Spirit of Netball Award: Janette Bowden
The Spirit of netball is chosen by the CCNA committee and is awarded to someone who embodies passion and dedication to enhance netball within the county.
Many of you will know Janette as our NDO – She works 3 days a week for England Netball but you’d think it was full time given how much she does for us here. She goes above and beyond her role and her passion for netball at all levels is truly inspirational. Janette is always happy to support clubs and has developed strong bonds with the county committee to work together to improve netball across Cambridgeshire, especially in the North. She is always thinking of ways to get more young players involved, regularly organising tournaments, supporting the y6 academy days. She also ensures netball is accessible to all, running back to netball sessions and walking sessions. Throughout covid Janette supported clubs and league with returning to netball. She’s irreplaceable and is our deserved winner of the Spirit of Netball 2022.
Felice Papworth Award: Olivia Petherick
This award was created in memory of Felice Papworth and all that she did to promote and encourage netball in Cambridgeshire. It recognises anyone who has had a positive impact on the game and is nominated by you. We had two outstanding nomination this year, Olivia Petherick, and Jean Hobday.
Jean Hobday has been a member of Comberton for nearly 22 years, having played for Milton for a while before that. Jean has been an umpire during all of this time. Whilst at Comberton she has gained her B award and has umpired at every level, from the adult East Regional league down to our local Junior Development league. She umpires regularly for Cambridge University and is associated with Hills Road umpiring their inter college games. Jean is an umpire mentor and tester for our Cambridgeshire aspiring umpires providing advice and support on their umpiring journey. Jean umpires at Comberton training sessions for junior and senior players and encourages other players to pick up a whistle and have a go. She has been our club Officiating Secretary for some time. Jean recently committed to assisting with junior coaching within our club and also at the Perse, bringing her experience to many more young players in the County. Jean spends a few months of most years in Australia where she umpires regularly and has been mentored herself to improve her own skills. Jean is a respected member of our Cambridgeshire netball community and embodies all that the Felice Papworth award entails and is a worthy nominee.
Olivia works tirelessly for City of Ely Netball Club. After 11 years, she is still the driving force behind EVERYTHING in the club. She is instrumental in both adult and junior sections, coaching both. She has captained Team2 for 10 years – this year someone else finally took responsibility and so Olivia has mentored a new younger member in this role. She is a C level umpire and has ended up taking ALL our club umpiring responsibilities – often all day Saturday and all day Sunday in CDNL and Prem. She has been a committee member since Day 1. But most of all she is such a positive driving force on court, keeping everyone motivated. After COVID we lost a lot of club members and this season we lost every match. Despite this, Olivia continued to offer support and encouragement, never criticised, and made the season enjoyable with her unending enthusiasm. Olivia has given up so much of her personal time to the club and wider netball community – I don’t think she has ever been publicly thanked and after the season we had this is the perfect time for her to be recognised for the positive impact that she brings.
Team of the Year 2022: Royston
After 4 consecutive Premier League wins, having lost two playoffs’ previously and then being denied by covid I think we all knew it was this teams time to shine! After an undefeated Premier League season, on 7 May, 6 teams took to the court for a chance of Regional Promotion. After 5 tough games, Royston came out on top!
Congratulations on a very well-deserved promotion to East region.
Youth Performance Award 2022: Perse U16
Perse U16 Qualified for the U16 National Schools Netball Final – such an achievement and rarely achieved within Cambs. The girls trained incredibly hard alongside school fixtures to get themselves ready. They qualified in second place from coutny and had an exception round at the regional, with the final match going into extra time. At the finals the quality of netball on display was on another level, nothing like they’d faced before. The girls shooting was on top form, pressure through court and defence was admirable. The grit and determination showed by all the girls was incredible. Even thought we didn’t win the girls stepped up and did everyone proud in each match. To make the National Finals was incredible and an amazing experience for them all. Beyond the Nationals the squad continues to have success finishing their season undefeated in the school fixture.
Young Achiever 2022: Izzy Harrop
This award is in recognition of how hard our young players work both as a player and a volunteer. We had some amazing nominations this year – it was great to read them and to have so many wonderful role models out there. All these girls are playing at high level, studying but still find the time to coach, umpire and support their schools.
Nomniees: Izzy Harrop, Monika Marino, Charlotte Smith, Ella Taylor, Maddy Brooking, Rhiannon Jones
Izzy has done so much as both a player and a volunteer for Royston this season. As a player, she has been acting as vice-captain for Royston’s first team, and has become a pivotal member of the team’s defence, helping Royston to concede the fewest goals in the league, and remain undefeated for the whole season. She played a key role in Royston winning the regional playoffs to gain promotion to East Region 3 for the 22/23 season. Alongside her club commitments, she is also vice-captain for the hugely successful Stephen Perse Foundation U19 netball team, who won the county tournament and narrow missed out on qualification for EN National schools at the regional tournament. She also retained her place in the Saracens Mavericks Futures Cambridge hub this year. As a volunteer, she has taken her Level 1 coaching qualification, and assists at training for Royston’s junior members. She has also been managing the club’s U14 team in the JDG league. Alongside this, Izzy has passed her IOA qualification this year. She has assisted Sarah Lawson in running the county academy trials and at academy training sessions, and she helped to manage the county academy U15 team at county tournaments.
Mon has been a member of Co-Jags since U12s and is now part of our Regional Squad, regularly receiving POM (her record is 5 in a row). She is a committed member of the team, giving 110% at all training session and matches. She was also a member of our Cambridgeshire Academies pathways, progressing to futures, U15 and this year at just 17 years of age, was selected for Mavericks U19 – including their match-day squad. Despite her age, Mon has a mature head on her and is respected by her peers. She’s a great role model both at club and at school where she captains Stephen Perse U19, who reached the Regional Finals this year. She takes on feedback and works hard to implement it within her game, always with the mentality to improve herself whilst also supporting others to progress. Mon has also supported our Academy Team, helping with sessions at Christmas and coaching the U15 squad. Mon is such an inspiration, and we know she’s going to go on to achieve even more!
Charlotte has shown incredible commitment to many areas of her netball since we returned after the covid break. Since taking her on line IOA course in October she worked hard with her mentor and took lots of practice sessions to then successfully take her assessment just 3 months later in January passing with some positive comments from the playing teams and the assessors. Officiating her first senior CDNL game in February was a highlight of the season. Her playing has continued to develop alongside her officiating through the season captaining a newly formed team in a local friendly league (5 of the players are also only 14) they have successfully won 5 of their first 6 games. Participating in her school team finishing 2nd narrowly missing out on the County Schools Finals in January on goal average. Whilst also playing for her Icons u14A and up for U16’s during the winter 2021/2022 season Last but by no means least she has enthusiastically passed on her passion and knowledge to our younger players, supporting Icons U12’s team on game days / tournaments as part of the coaching team and volunteering on the County Year 6 development days looking at our up and coming potential county players.
Ella Taylor – outstanding player, all-rounder and an amazing defender who put her heart and soul into every game and training session. Ella is one busy teenager who just can’t get enough of the game we all love! She has been with Icons since April 2021 where she joined as an U12. She has just completed her first season with the U14a squad finishing 3rd in the league. Playing up to the U16 where she can and never misses a session albeit coming straight from her U15 Cambridgeshire County session’s. She has been volunteering at club helping coach and umpire the U12 and development session and then stays for her own training session 7-8pm Thursday’s she has been getting even more experience playing with the adults in summer league to gain even more experience. On a Friday Ella also coaches year 5/6 Bee Netball with Karen tyres at her local primary school Holywell. She’s doing her umpiring course this weekend! With all this in mind I believe her passion and dedication for the game she can really push herself to make it to the top and be in that red dress.
Maddy is a very talented netballer and has always shown huge passion, commitment and determination; not just as a player but also as an umpire at junior leagues and as a youth coach. As lockdown hit Maddy was starting to break through to the Mavericks pathway, and undeterred by her year off and being unable to compete she worked tirelessly on her skills and fitness. After restrictions were lifted she realised her goal of being selected for the Mavericks NPL U19 squad. She has scooped two Coach’s player awards, one opposition player award and two players’ player awards, such is the impact she has made to the team. Within school she has been recognised for her longstanding commitment to sport by gaining a Sports Scholarship and being named Netball captain- accolades only given to outstanding individuals. At club, she has embedded herself firmly in the 1st team (Regional) and was recognised by her teammates after being awarded Players’ Player this season after some game-winning performances. We are incredibly proud of all that Maddy has achieved. Not only is she a fantastic player, but her attitude, hard work and teamwork make her very worthy of this award.
Rhiannon has had an amazing season. She has made her debut in Royston’s first team at the age of 14, and at WD has helped the team win all their games in the Cambridgeshire Premier League, and played in the recent Netball East regional playoffs which Royston won to gain promotion to East Region 3 for next season. In parallel to her playing for club, she has gained selection to the Saracens Mavericks U15 Competition squad, and has been representing Mavericks at their matchplay dates.
Charley-Lee Burton Award 2022: Hampton-Harriers
Over the years we’ve sadly lost members of our netball family – today we remember them in different ways, whether that be through an award (Felice Papworth) or through a memorial tournament (Sarah Oldham Memorial Tournament).
In 2022 we sadly lost another member of the community – Charley-Lee Burton who passed at 27. Charley-Lee had played netball in Cambridgeshire since she was a young girl, starting off playing with her mum in the North of the county. She could settle in any position, had an amazing jump, and always had a smile on her face. She started playing for Harrier’s 1st team for a season before falling pregnant with her little girl. She also had a beautiful baby boy shortly before passing. Charley-Lee will be very much missed by everyone who knew her and in memory of her love for netball we are introducing the ‘Charley-Lee Burton Memorial Award’. After speaking with Charley-Lee’s mum Tina, this award will go to a player, volunteer or club from the North who has a positive impact on the netball at any level.
This year the first recipient of the award goes to a club, who through the pandemic and this year have given so much back to their members. The club continue to support back to netball and has been instrumental in bringing players up into the HPL league as well as providing support and training to teams before, during and after games. Training sessions are provided for all abilities with more experienced players mentoring. They run charity sessions throughout the year to provide members with opportunities to play with mixed ability in a fun environment. During the pandemic they also merged two clubs Hampton and Harriers (the club with which Charley-Lee belonged to), allowing wider number of players to have access to coaching and as a result more juniors now have a club with which to join.
Contribution to Netball: Jill Harrison
It is a little known fact that Jill is the reason that all of us are here today, without her there would not be a Cambs County Netball Association. She was brought in by England Netball when the county was about to go bust and she put the building blocks in place to ensure that would never happen again. She certainly taught me the value of tight budgeting and building a super team around you.
She is held in such high regard by the region that when they were asked to put forward local heroes to carry the Olympic Flame, Jill was chosen by Sport England.
Jill is a mentor in every sense of the word, such is her passion for netball and officiating that when the mentoring requirement was launched by EN there was only one person who would be able to bring it into Cambs and that was Jill. She ensured that Cambs led the way as far as the implementation of mentors went, training up a field of recruits and seeking clever ways of getting as many umpires through as possible. Her legacy is the number of umpires we have in the county today and the umpiring sub-committee that still works incredibly hard to deliver all of its targets.
Jill has mentored many people on the committee too, I served as vice chair under her, and she spent hours ensuring that I was ready to take on the role of chair, sharing her expertise and time with me.
Jill is a coach, umpire and ex player who has been in and around netball for the last, well let’s just say many years – I am sure she will be able to tell you how long. In that time she has held many roles including:County Chair, County Premier League chair, Lead Umpire, Lead Assessor, Lead Mentor.
She has and still does deliver the IOA and C award umpiring courses. She mentors and assists umpires up to their A award written paper, even delivering tutoring and classes in her own home. She is responsible fully or partially for leagues of umpires and holds a passion for delivering officiating that is matched by few.
Her love for netball never wains and she is the first to offer to help out and often the last to leave the court on a Sunday. I think she still gets the same level of enjoyment that she has always had from the sport, but like the best leader recognises when it is time to let someone else have a go.
This is not goodbye, Jill still be a very present force at matches, it is merely a recognition of the huge amount of work she has put it and the lifetimes worth of commitment she has made to netball.
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