Team Beast wins BNB Mixed Netball tournament

By Akeem Lawal 
TEAM Beast emerged winners of the 2019 Mixed Netball tournament organised by the Lagos based Bringing Netball Back club to mark Nigeria's Democracy day.


The tournament held at the Sir Molade Okoya-Thomas Indoor Sports Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium, featured members of the Lagos based club with the male players invited to be part of the competing teams.

Now in its fifth edition, the annual charity event is part of efforts of Bringing Netball Back Club to create awareness for the sport in Nigeria and push it as the team sport of choice for women in Lagos and across the country.

Netball, predominantly is a sport for women, the mixed tournament provided opportunity for BNB Club to showcase another version of the game to spectators who are unfamiliar with the Netball.

According to the secretary of the club, Omoboye Odu, the introduction of the mixed tournament has helped BNB in creating awareness as spectators were treated to intense action with a different form of Netball.

"As you can see, this is very enjoyable for the players. Although the game is principally played by women globally but we try to see the mixed variation and that's what we've introduced to the spectators and Nigeria as well. 

“Beyond this mixed tournament, we have a biannual tournament against a Ghanaian team. It started two years ago and we play on home and away format; they come here and we go there and we've had three editions so far. The Ghanaian team were here in January, we are going to see them later in the year,” Odu said.

President of BNB, Bimbo Smith stated that the whole idea of the tournament is always to promote Netball as the team sport of choice for women and girls in Nigeria, adding that the club's vision is to drive Netball in the country until the emergence of a national team that will come at major international championships in the future. 

Smith added that the club, with the support of stakeholders, will develop netball from the schools.

"This mixed tournament slightly different because we introduce the guys and it made it a little more exciting. So, it is more of a spectacles for these watching. For me, it's been a great event and we've seen lot of highs and lot of lows. You can see that Netball is not just for girls. In fact there is an increase in the number of men that are playing Netball around the World, so this is just a showcase of what you will probably see in other clubs in different countries. 

“Nigeria have the potential and athletes to compete at the highest level such as the World Cup and the Commonwealth Games. We are really working to ensure that we can pool out the talents from the grassroots. We are working with the Nigeria Netball Federation to this and hopefully we should see something coming out of our effort very soon,” Smith said.

The final was contested by Team Beast and Team Crunchers and the encounter ended 11-7 in favour of Team Beast who were crowned champions at the end of the day.

Three teams; Falcons, Crunchers and Beast competed in the one day tournament which was held in support of Women At Risk International Foundation with the support of the Lagos State Sports Commission and Jumia Food.