The annual SPAR Madibaz netball tournament held at the south campus in Port Elizabeth over the weekend showed the event has continued to grow in popularity with a record 80 teams attending this year.<\/p>\n
The two-day tournament at Nelson Mandela University accommodates women’s and men’s teams, providing a perfect chance for players in the Eastern Cape to gauge their strength at this early stage of the season.<\/p>\n
Madibaz Sport netball manager Melinda Goosen said the opportunity for some teams to play indoors and the activities created around the event had contributed to its increasing popularity.<\/p>\n
“Word of mouth of each year’s success makes new teams want to join and experience our Madibaz magic,” she said.<\/p>\n
“This year we drew 800 players to the tournament, playing in various sections, and this created a wonderful vibe around the whole occasion.”<\/p>\n
She added that the growth of the event was an indication of the hunger in the Eastern Cape community for the sport.<\/p>\n
“Firstly, it gives coaches the opportunity to test their teams’ abilities as they prepare for upcoming leagues.<\/p>\n
“Secondly, those attending, especially schools players, get an idea of what it is to be part of the Madibaz netball set-up, providing them with an incentive to join us when they leave school.”<\/p>\n
Goosen said it was a chance to demonstrate the talent available in the Eastern Cape.<\/p>\n
“It is great to see them come out to play the game that we love.<\/p>\n
“With the support of our loyal sponsors in SPAR Eastern Cape, we are able to put an event together where there is great exposure for a wide range of players and two fun-filled days for the whole family.<\/p>\n
“Our product sponsors for the event, Twizza and Noorsveld Chickens, ensured that the thirsts got quenched and the tummies were full.”<\/p>\n
The tournament underlined the strength of netball at Madibaz, with their teams winning most of the sections.<\/p>\n
The only sections university teams did not win were the B and men’s divisions, in which they did not field teams. They were won by Devitels (men) and Phoenix (B section).<\/p>\n
Goosen said their success was an indication of the high level of netball at the varsity.<\/p>\n
“Madibaz netball is in a great space at the moment, having had a magic season in 2018, which provided a solid base for 2019.<\/p>\n
“We have lost some senior players due to them graduating, but we have enormous talent coming through in the first-year students.<\/p>\n
“In addition we have great coaches and structures in place to support these players to take them to the next level.<\/p>\n
“We are proud that the players are from the Eastern Cape because it is very important to us as a university in the region to retain our emerging talent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The annual SPAR Madibaz netball tournament held at the south campus in Port Elizabeth over the weekend showed the event has continued to grow in popularity with a record 80 teams attending this year. The two-day tournament at Nelson Mandela University accommodates women’s and men’s teams, providing a perfect chance for players in the Eastern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2800,1896,1759,2370],"class_list":["post-26949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-nelson-mandela-university","tag-netball","tag-spar-eastern-cape","tag-spar-madibaz-netball-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}