On Saturday 24th June, Bradley Stoke Netball Club (BSNC) celebrated over 15 years of the club with a charity fundraising evening in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support, BSNC’s chosen charity for 2016/17.

The event was a year in the planning and nearly 80 past and present BSNC members and their families attended the fun-packed night in the Heineken Lounge at Ashton Gate Stadium.

The evening kicked off with a speech from outgoing chairperson Katherine Budden, who paid tribute to all the volunteers who have helped to run BSNC over the years. She also thanked all partners, family members and supporters who are behind the scenes encouraging players week in week out. Finally, she thanked the coaches who work hard to deliver continuous development to all the club members.

There were also some end of season awards, including a very special (and the first-ever) BSNC Lifetime Achievement Award for coach Helen Newman, who has been with the club for 15 years and was also the founding member and inspiration behind Bradley Stoke Junior Netball Club, now a thriving club for ages 11 – 16.

The rest of the evening was about fundraising and fun. An amazing amount of money was raised through a raffle and an auction of enviable prizes. The club was grateful to receive some fantastic donations from The Aztec Hotel & Spa, UnderArmour, Bristol City Football Club, The Hilton at Bradley Stoke, Sony Playstation, The Bristol Harbour Hotel and other local businesses. After the final pounds and pence were added up, the club had raised £2,000 for Macmillan and had a great night to celebrate a fabulous club. After the event, the total was increased to £2,500 after a bid to Lloyds Bank was successful and it contributed an additional £500 to the club’s fundraising.

Anyone interested in playing club netball, should visit the BSNC website for further information.

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By Kathryn Oldfield of BSNC.

Bradley Stoke Netball Club (BSNC), based at the Jubilee Centre in Bradley Stoke, have had a great year playing across five divisions of the Avon League. As the only club in Bristol to currently enter the five teams into the Avon league, we are a club bursting with friendly faces and players of all abilities and age ranges.

Our first team will be playing in Division 1 next season after a year that saw pregnancy and injury leave the side a little short of playing power. The second team finished a strong 5th in Division 2 with a largely new team playing at this level this year. The combination of youth and experience proving to be very successful for them. The third team was also dogged by injury this season and after a rocky start to the season managed to come together brilliantly to finish 5th in Division 5. Some superb performances from our under-16s in our fourth and fifth teams along with some excellent captaincy from our more experienced club members lead to both teams maintaining their spots in Divisions 7 and 11.

BSNC also has an active social calendar and this year we celebrated start of season with a bowling evening at The Lanes. Our Christmas ‘do’ was well attended as was our annual charity quiz and the ever-popular tour to Pontins in Brean (photo above). For the first year the club was successful in getting two teams into the cup competition at Brean. Some girls are getting ready to jet off to La Manga soon as well to defend the title they won in 2016. Good luck ladies!

BSNC is currently open to new members and if you are considering joining us please drop us a email at bradleystokenetball@yahoo.co.uk. Alternatively, you can find us on Facebook!

Photo: Bradley Stoke Netball Club on tour at Brean in May 2017

This article originally appeared in the June 2017 issue of the Bradley Stoke Journal news magazine (on page 38). The magazine is delivered FREE, EVERY MONTH, to 9,500 homes in Bradley Stoke, Little Stoke and Stoke Lodge. Phone 01454 300 400 to enquire about advertising or leaflet insertion.

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Bradley Stoke Junior Netball Club is celebrating its most successful season yet in the Avon Netball League. This was the club’s fifth season competing in the league and this year they had two winning teams!

The Under-16 team won Division 2 and the Under 14 ‘A’ team also won in Division 2. Both the winning teams had a fairly easy start to the season but had to really up their game and fight their way through the second-half of the season to come out on top.

The Under-14 ‘B’ team narrowly missed being runners-up in Division 3 and the Under-12 team, a completely new group of girls at the start of the season, stormed their way through the seeding competition to be placed straight into Division 1.

Club secretary Lyn Moreton said:

“We have a fantastic group of dedicated coaches who have encouraged and supported the players this season and everyone is very proud of the girls’ achievements.”

Photos: Bradley Stoke Junior Netball Club’s U14A team (top) and U16 team (above), both winners of Division 2 in their respective age groups in the Avon League.

This article originally appeared in the June 2017 issue of the Bradley Stoke Journal news magazine (on page 31). The magazine is delivered FREE, EVERY MONTH, to 9,500 homes in Bradley Stoke, Little Stoke and Stoke Lodge. Phone 01454 300 400 to enquire about advertising or leaflet insertion.

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Over the weekend of 9th-12th June, Bradley Stoke Netball Club’s (BSNC’s) First Team took part in their first ever European netball tournament. For the last 14 years, netball tour for BSNC has only been as far as Pontins at Brean Sands – so this was somewhat more exotic!

Ten squad members joined 22 other netball teams, plus the Netball Superleague team Surrey Storm, at the 5-star La Manga resort in Spain for a weekend of netball and sunshine.

Having finished a strong fifth out of ten in the Avon Premier League this season, with a winning streak in their last few games, the squad were on a high going out to Spain. It felt like all the great skills imparted to them by head coach Helen Newman had come together at the right time and the team would be in strong position to do well at the tournament. But the other teams were an unknown, so anything could happen.

The tournament was held over two days. On arrival at the courts, the teams were treated to a mini-tournament against the Netball Superleague winning side Surrey Storm. Each team got three minutes to challenge Surrey Storm, whose team members include Pamela Cookey and Tamsin Greenway, who have been England Netball regulars. The BSNC girls took up the challenge and managed to hold their own. Karen Beaven managed to sink a penalty goal shot so that the team finished only 2-1 down, which felt like a massive achievement.

The start of the seeding tournament didn’t go so well and BSNC lost their first game. But the team managed to re-group and draw the next match and win the final two games. Combined with other teams results at the end of the day this meant that they had qualified to be in the Plate competition on Day 2.

After a small dancefloor mishap on Friday night, resulting in four stitches for one player to a deep cut from broken glass and a niggling injury for another player, the team was down to seven players for the Saturday tournament – so no substitution options all day.

More: BSNC win all four of their first games, taking no prisoners »

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