Images: Sporting Chance

Months of dedication, determination, teamwork and fun reached the climax when close to 100 young Cape Town girls battled it out at the Sporting Chance Street Netball Festival Finale at the weekend.

The Festival Finale, which took place on the colourfully-painted courts inside the Netball World Cup Fan Park outside the CTICC on Sunday, followed a series of round-robin netball matches with integrated life skills sessions that saw 768 girls under the age of 13 from eight Cape Town communities coming together every Friday afternoon since April.

 The 16 top teams (winners and runners-up per region) from the Regional Finals – all assigned names of Netball World Cup competing countries – competed in a jam-packed day of staged matches. It ended in an all-Mfuleni final with Mfuleni Wales and Mfuleni England going head-to-head in a scintillating match that was even at full-time.

 Two minutes of extra play saw Wales score three more points to win the overall title 22-19. The day was concluded with a prize giving ceremony on centre stage inside the Fan Park and allowed the champions to lift the coveted trophy – to the cheers of hundreds of local and international street netball fans.

 Sponsored by the City of Cape Town and Sunbet Cares, and endorsed by Cape Town Netball Federation and Netball South Africa, Street Netball was conceived and co-ordinated by Sporting Chance (a youth sports development organisation based in Cape Town) to encourage girls to play sports and lead a healthy and active lifestyle, outdoors, within their community. It is also about guiding them towards future opportunities through the valuable lessons of sport.

‘’The Street Netball series has been fantastic,” said Brad Bing, managing director of Sporting Chance. “We have watched some incredible talent on display which, if nurtured, should be the future of South African netball. By taking sports to grassroots levels, one can identify and nurture the natural and raw skills that are in abundance amongst our youth.

 “It has also been wonderful to have so many parents and supporters turn up each week to see their young protégés in action. The festival finale inside the Fan Park where the players, coaches and spectators had a once-in-a-lifetime experience, has been a fitting end to a special programme. Watching these young girls having fun throughout the programme has been a pleasure to witness and proof that South Africa has got so much to offer the world.”

“Sporting Chance has once again put together a wonderful community-based sports programme involving hundreds of children playing sports, learning new life skills, and gaining confidence as each week progressed. Our key sponsors, The City of Cape Town and Sunbet Cares, as well as our supporting product and service partners, have been very supportive and we look forward to this Street Netball initiative gaining momentum and growing in the years ahead,” concluded Bing.

Edited by Nicklaus Kruger