Giving back to move forward

Leah Nolan on how volunteering in netball led to her becoming a full-time netball coach

Without volunteers, netball couldn’t survive. A not-for-profit sport, netball’s growth, success and future are incredibly reliant on the dedication and time put in by passionate volunteers up and down the country.

“It was the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award,” said Leah Nolan, Graduate Netball Fellow at Oakham School, on how she first got involved with volunteering in netball at the age of 14.

“You have to do volunteering hours, so I did them at the club I was playing at. It started as one hour a week and then kind of spiraled from there.

“I was put in with a group that had never played netball and it was amazing to see them pick it up so fast. I got given the youngest lot, under-10s pretty much. They were my little babies to start with. From really struggling to their first league matches, it was really rewarding to see their progression. They went from not being able to catch to being fully fledged players in the league.”

Leah started playing netball in primary school as part of the school’s curriculum before progressing to join a local club, Fenton Manor in Stoke-on-Trent, and then continued her love and involvement while studying Sports Science at Edge Hill University in Lancashire.

She completed her England Netball Level One coaching course as a 16-year-old and then was involved in England Netball’s Pass On Your Passion scheme (a scheme that recognises young volunteers) volunteering at Ormskirk Netball Club after moving to university.

Leah logged more than 400 hours and was rightfully recognised for her efforts, winning a Young Netball Volunteer Award back in 2020. That grounding in volunteering led to her pursuing more formal netball coaching positions and since then her career has gone from strength to strength, ending with her taking up a position at Oakham School in August of this year.

Moving to a different region, she continued both her career and volunteering. She says: “I coached for Staffordshire as an assistant coach. Then, after university, I moved to Ipswich. I got asked to join the Regional Management Board for Netball East.

“I was Chair of the Youth Advisory Group, recruited four other people to be on the mini board and we’d come up with ideas and then kind of feed them back to the main board.

“I also worked in a school as a coach and pretty much coached all day everyday. My first time coaching adults was quite a lot but I had a really good season with them.”

As well as coaching through club, school, county and region, Leah is involved in netball officiating, saying that it’s a skill those involved in netball can start learning from a young age.

“You can start learning how to be an umpire younger than you can do your coaching courses. I did that to fill the time until I was 16 before I could do my first coaching course.

“I loved it so much as a kid and when I moved to Ipswich and I was in the school, I set up my own mini young leaders program. I got some of the kids that were in the school to learn how to umpire and learn how to coach. They umpired matches for us.”

On how to get involved in volunteering within netball she said: “I think it’s quite easy to pick up if you want to do it. You already know netball. You are probably already playing or you already watch. All you have to do is pick up a whistle or pick up a ball.

“I started really simply, laying out cones, picking them back up again, kind of observing other people, and then because someone took a chance on me and let me have those little kids, that’s how I came to sit in this position where I literally work full-time as a netball coach.”