Photo credit: rolleh
“C’mon people, the clock is ticking and you’re not on the court yet!” said a timid voice from behind me. Turning, I realised it was the ref.
‘Oh geez’, I sighed. If she was scared telling us to get on the court, how was she going to go telling us when we had done something wrong?
I shouldn’t have worried. She never told us when we did something wrong, somehow those moments slid past unpenalised. Oh no, instead she called a penalty when we were clearly in the right. If you were holding the ball and someone knocked it out of your hands, she’d call contact. On you. Aka you lose the ball.
Um, righto.
As a result, a couple of players started to get frustrated (C included, as he couldn’t do anything right in her eyes, I suggested that maybe his height of 6ft 8 meant that in her opinion he needed to be at least 6ft 8 away from everyone else at all times). I simply laughed it off and kept playing, after all it was just a friendly competition, no need to get narky.
For a bit of background in my netballing history, I’m a defense player so I know when it’s necessary to use my body and be firm or not. I play firm but not rough, and certainly not dirty. When it comes to super league my effort increases by 1000%, yet I still don’t resort to using knees, elbows and shoulders. It’s only when another player starts playing dirty against me that I will hold my position even firmer and use my body to push them around a little bit, but that’s incredibly rare. In this case the shooter and I had a great time chatting and laughing, but both playing seriously when we needed to. We also played respectively, appreciating there would be contact (inevitable in the game of netball) yet not getting phased by it at all and certainly not holding a grudge against each other.
And then my team swapped me into the shooting position.
I don’t play this position often, so I only know a couple of things:
- Find the free space for your team to pass to you easily
- Hold your position firmly in the circle so that the defence can’t get around you
- Get yourself between your other shooter (goal attack) and defense so that you can hold the defense back, and let the goal attack take the shot without as much pressure
I suspect it was the last two items combined that got me into hot water. As a defense player my instinct is to get under the ring ready for rebounds, and my opposition wanted to get into that same position. I didn’t let them. This meant they weren’t able to easily defend the other shooter when he had the ball, and as a result, the defense did not like this.
My goal attack, Bretto, and I were doing well. We had made a comeback and got our team in front. I was holding the defense off him, getting a few shots in myself, and generally playing a good game. I was not playing dirty. Then suddenly…
WHAM! Shoved from behind!
“STOP FUCKING PUSHING ME!” she screamed.
I was stunned for a second, and then started laughing. Hard.
“Are you fucking serious?!” I replied. “Cause if you are, that’s really funny. Are you seriously trying to start a fight on the fucking netball court?”
Then shamefully, I uttered the stupid bogan tough line:
“If you want to start something, I will slam you.”
Urgh, not proud of that. But from that point on she tried her best to push me over, use elbows on me etc, and every single time I laughed. I couldn’t help it, her determination was impressive! Her anger even more so.
At one point I caught the ball, then tried to turn around to shoot. I merely pivoted on my foot to face the ring and in doing so stood up straight, where I found she was only 10cm from my face. Another rare moment for the night, the ref made the right call and penalised her for obstruction. “She stepped in!!” the girl screamed at the ref. “Actually, I just rotated my foot” I replied in a smart ass tone.
Pretty clearly, I was a bitch for the rest of the game. A whole 3mins.
At the end of the game she tried to shake my hand, but I refused and said to her “no thanks, not if you’re going to start shit on the court”. I don’t think I’ve ever refused to shake someone’s hand outright like that before, and I was a little bit shocked at myself. But honestly, it’s just a game, there’s no need to play dirty and push people around unnecessarily. I’m not going to just forget about that when the whistle blows. My integrity stays with me during, and after, a game. I won’t excuse people pushing me, elbowing me and being dirty, and I certainly won’t shake their hand to reward them for it.
I wonder what will happen next time we play that team.
