Lagos based Bringing Netball Back club will take on the Rising Stars Club from Ghana in the West African Netball Clubs Open Championship on Saturday January 12 at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Sports Hall, Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere.
The one day event sponsored by TBC and supported by the Lagos State Sports Commission will feature two teams from each of the clubs playing in the showcase matches.
According to the President of the Bringing Netball Back club, Abimbola Smith, the purpose of the event is to promote the game and make netball the team sport of choice for women in Nigeria.
The West African Netball Clubs Open championship will enable the Bringing Netball Back club to continue their quest to popularize the sport with young girls, Heads of Schools, the press and key stakeholders promoting women in sports will be at the event on Saturday.
She revealed that the Ikoyi based club had organised training and clinics for students and coaches selected from schools across the state through the Lagos state sports commission.
The matches between BNB club and the Rising Stars club of Ghana will be an exciting demonstration of netball for the whole but with the underlying mission to increase participation in netball by schools and to encourage the emergence of netball clubs across Lagos and Nigeria.
“We already had a training with six sports teachers across the education districts in Lagos for a netball workshop facilitated by the Secretary of the Nigeria Netball Federation, Hellen Manufor and we had about 40 coaches took part in the clinic which was very encouraging for us.
Last year, we went to Ghana to play an international friendly match with the Golden Maidens of Accra. The truth of matter is that, there is no way we could have achieved that much without the backing of our sponsors. We thanked them and we will continue to reach out to the sponsors for supporting the vision that we have for promoting netball and giving us opportunity to play competitively as the only netball club in Nigeria” Smith said.
Rising Stars Netball Club are expected to storm Lagos with a strong contingents on Friday ahead of the matches on Saturday. The first match will kick off at 10am, involving the second team from each club whilst the first team from each club will commence their match at 2pm.