As part of our continuing partnership with AoC Sport, Team Bath’s netball captain and Mintridge ambassador, Eboni Beckford – Chambers visited the College to deliver a bronze programme with three separate groups.

Upon arrival, Eastover Primary School greeted Eboni in the BTC Sports Hall ready for an hour of netball skills. The students listened intently to what the England star had to say as they began to focus on individual skills for the first part of their session. Eboni stressed the importance of the basic skills such as ball handling and passing and how repetition is integral.

As the students grew in confidence with the various challenges given to them, Eboni moved onto contextual games to allow each player to think about the reasons that they have been working on these skills. Creating space was a key focus, which the students picked up very quickly allowing a fast paced and very competitive game play.

As the session drew to a close, the students were able to get Eboni’s autograph and lots of photo opportunities before saying their goodbyes.

Eboni made her way to the Lecture Theatre where she delivered a short presentation to Haygrove School and BTC netballers. Eboni spoke of her journey to the “Red Dress” of England and the life that she has built around it, engaging every person in the room with her stories. Balancing work and playing at university, setbacks through injury and hilarious tales from fitness sessions throughout her time down under were amongst the presentation. As the presentation drew to a close, there was an array of questions from the floor,

“How many hours do you train a week?”

“What do you prefer playing, the ANZ Championship or Super League?”

“Do you ever sleep?”

Inspired by what they had heard, it was straight to the netball courts for the girls to don their trainers and start warming up. Eboni had the girls working very hard for the next hour – focussing them on their movement and technique.

It isn’t a day with Eboni without a selfie, and therefore photos and autographs were the final element of a fantastic afternoon.

Our Sports Development Manager, Mason Galloway said,

It was a great experience for our Team BTC Netballers and children from  the local schools who were able to spend the afternoon with Eboni. The messages she shared with the players about her own journey was really powerful, the amount of hard work and dedication it takes to be a professional athlete was inspirational for the students. The session Eboni took the girls through on the netball court was very challenging but at the same time very engaging, the girls got a lot of experience out of the day.

If you would like to see the video footage from the day, please click here or to read Mintridge Events blog from the day click here!