Mixed Social League — a new netball league for men and women

By Chan Hui Mui/Red Sports

Two netball enthusiasts from different backgrounds with different ambitions came together to organise the Mixed Social League which will run for six months. It is a long netball league which started in October 2010 and will end in March 2011. There will be two round-robin stages with a carnival held after every round.

Singaporean Michael Ong and New Zealander Joanne Khan met each other and wanted to organise a league to make their dreams come true.

Michael Ong, owner of a timber flooring company, has been involved with netball for the past 13 years when his junior college’s netball teacher-in-charge, Ms Noraida (current Singapore Sports School netball coach) introduced the game to him. Later, in his university years, he founded a recreational netball club in National University of Singapore and organised the first street netball tournament, Netballuxion.

“I have always felt that there is very little interaction among players from different teams. I have always wanted something that players can interact with each other on a regular basis,” said Michael.

Joanne Khan, who has lived in Singapore for the past 25 years, started playing netball since young. She has always been very passionate about netball.

“In every community I go, I will always get myself involved in netball, be it playing or coaching,” said Joanne. “Speaking to mixed netball players, many wanted more court time playing against other teams, beyond the competitive leagues organised.”

Sharing common objectives for the league, Michael and Joanne hoped to create a fun league for the participating team and at the same time, raise the profile of mixed netball.

“I hope that this league can be a platform for netball enthusiasts to get together and have fun on a weekly basis. I hope that through this league, players can understand the fact that having fun during the game, getting to know more people in the netball circle are the primary objectives in the game,” said Michael.

“My personal opinion about netball in Singapore is that most players are not enjoying themselves during games. They are always under pressure to do well. From the players’ and the coaches’ facial expressions, they seemed to be stressed up during a game. I have always wanted to tell them, ‘Chill and smile more!’

“The system in Singapore is too results-oriented. We are too focused on winning the game and we do not feel good when we lose a game despite playing to our best abilities. I have always believed that you will only play at your best abilities when you are enjoying the game. One can always enjoy the game and still play competitive netball.”

“We are also hoping to raise the profile of mixed netball within the community, help in the development of new players to the sport that will feed through into the competitive leagues held by Netball Singapore and remove the stigma that netball is a ‘girls only’ sport. There are very few recognized team sports where male and female players can compete together on the same field, which is why we love it so much,” added Joanne.

However, with the league just into its first month, things are not all smooth sailing.

“Securing courts for the weekly games is a real issue. There are only approximately eight public courts available for hire to the public in Singapore. For a country and population the size of Singapore, this is extremely low, especially as the interest in netball is growing,” explained Joanne.

Both Joanne and Michael are looking forward to the carnivals with will be held after each round-robin stage, a highlight of the league.

“All teams will gather together for a carnival during mid-season and end-season. All players will be randomly allocated into different teams. They will be playing against their club mates and playing with their league’s opponents!” said Michael.

Setting up the Mixed Social League as one of the stepping stones to their dreams, both Michael and Joanne hopes to increase the popularity of mixed netball.

“We will probably have a short break from netball after March (where the season ends) to refresh ourselves, before getting together again to start planning for the next Mixed Social League. I would like to also invite netball clubs from other countries for our future leagues. Another plan for the long term is also to plan overseas tours for our community to play with other netball enthusiasts from around the world,” said Michael.

“I would love to see mixed netball developed right back to the grassroots in schools so that it can eventually feed upwards into the social leagues, competitive leagues and the elite level. Recently Singapore has been capturing the world stage by winning the rights to host a number of international sporting events — the recent youth Olympics and next year’s World Netball Championships — just to name a few. We would love to see Singapore lead the way and host a Mixed Netball World Championship in the future,” said Joanne.

The first round of the Mixed Social League is played on every Wednesday, at 7.20pm and 8.40pm at Kallang Netball Centre.

For more information, please visit mixednetball.sg.