Netballers got back on the court at a local tournament hosted by Midrand Action Sports on 17 October.
The tournament saw seven women’s teams and five mixed teams playing in separate competitions with R1 000 prize money for the winners. The Midrand Actions Sports Arena had been closed for most of the national lockdown before reopening at the beginning of August.
Sports coordinator at the arena, Lee McCloghrie said the Tuesday netball league had been started in September and operations at the venue had slowly started to gain momentum.
Owner of Midrand Action Sports Lezleiy Sahadew said, “For this event, we don’t benefit but we wanted to give the community a tournament to get together and play sport during the tough Covid-19 time. We are catering to Midrand to have an event to get together.”
He added that the venue had taken stringent measures to take care of the players with social distancing and sanitiser placed around the courts.
McCloghrie said some of the measures placed include checking temperatures of spectators and players and the ball gets sanitised. Additionally, every team was required to have their own bibs during the games.
McCloghrie added, “The tournament is made up of mixed squads, ladies and junior squads who are either club teams, school teams and some of the teams from our Tuesday night social league… There is a competitive team but there are some who came through for fun.
“A lot of players missed their netball. For a lot of people it’s their form of leisure and relaxation. The players come here to spend time with their friends and meet new people which was missed during lockdown. We want people to have a good fun day of netball at the arena while getting more people interested in the league.”
At the end of the tournament the winning team in the women’s division was AmaSkopas with Squad Goals in second place and Peacemakers Open in third. The mixed division was won by Abashayibezinga with Social D coming in second place and Champs earning third place.
Details: Midrand Action Sports 011 315 2429.