‘Funetherness’ fuels England route to top
Ama Agbeze reveals how team have united to put netball on the map in UK, writes Pippa Field
Ama Agbeze admitted, with a smile, that she was going to be in trouble. The England gold-medal winning netball captain and her team-mates had just let slip on stage one of the secrets behind their Commonwealth Games success. It is not some elaborate tactical ploy or the formula to perfect shooting – although Helen Housby did her best attempt at that when she held her nerve to score the last-second point to beat Australia in their own back yard at the Games in April.
Instead, it is their self-coined team mantra of “funetherness”. “A combination of fun and togetherness,” explained Agbeze (right) at Monday’s BT Sport Action Woman awards, where England Netball were crowned
Team of the Year.
In truth, the revelation of one of their key motivational tools hardly comes as a shock. The exuberant team celebrations – diving on top of each other in an emotional pile after finally breaking the southernhemisphere stranglehold to be crowned Commonwealth champions – demonstrated their indomitable team spirit. That excitable bond was again on show this week when they leapt up together to collect their gong. But the way they went about fostering such a feeling between the players – and the significance of them all buying into it – must not be underestimated.
“We obviously succeeded at the Games, but it was a long time coming. There’s been a lot of hard work,” said Agbeze, a Commonwealth bronze-medal winner in 2006. “The management had group meetings with a psychologist and we had meetings. Lots of people try to develop a team culture and they write words on the board. It’s always lots of words but they don’t necessarily mean anything.
“If you don’t buy into those things there is no point having the meetings. So we came up with words that meant different things to us that we can hold each other accountable for. ‘Funetherness’ is one of those we introduced before the Games. “When things are fun you push yourself more and have a laugh. Everyone always goes on about family, but it’s like that with us.
“I think the fact we’re so open with each other helps on court. Lots of times there are a few disputes or combinations aren’t working well. Off the court we have fun and say whatever we like to each other and on court it translates, so we can sort things out quite quickly.”
Another key ingredient is hard work. Four years before England had lost their Commonwealth Games semi-final to New Zealand by a point, before missing out to Jamaica in the bronze-medal match.
Under the guidance of Tracey Neville, appointed as permanent head coach in September 2015, they began building a head of steam, turning themselves into serial winners, and beating both Jamaica and Australia by single-point margins in their final two games to take Commonwealth gold.
“It’s nice for netball to be celebrated, we don’t usually get invited to any awards, let alone nominated for them,” Agbeze said. “This is the fun time, dressing up for ceremonies like this. But mostly it’s lots of sweat, definitely lots of tears and there’s blood too.
“It’s not all easy, so it’s nice to have these days. But if you don’t do all that hard work and have the sweat you don’t get the results.”
Those results will be expected to continue now they have raised the bar for the sport in the country, leading to increased participation, sponsorship and attention. The next challenge will be July’s World Cup, held in Liverpool.
“We needed to stay grounded,” Agbeze said. “We’ve done an amazing thing, but it’s almost like we haven’t. Next year is a home World Cup. We beat Australia on home soil so they’re probably gunning for us even more.
“The gold medal put the sport on the map in the UK. If we can double up, now people are looking more, it would be phenomenal for the future of the sport.”