With a business-like aura Anna Stembridge tosses her hair again and begins summarising the depth of being the pinnacle coach of England’s netball crew with a significant match on the horizon. “It’s brutal by way of how demanding and consuming it’s,” she says. “However I really feel actually proud and privileged to have the ability to step into the function.”
Stembridge, who was parachuted into the place earlier this yr following the , is knee-deep in preparation for subsequent month’s in Glasgow. There’s a large dose of déjà vu: Stembridge beforehand led England on the 2014 Commonwealth Video games, the place the crew missed out on the rostrum and he or she was sacked the next yr.
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Information of her appointment was accompanied by a sense of inevitability, with some quarters sad that she can be getting a second chunk of the cherry, albeit on an interim foundation. Stembridge was conscious of the way it appeared, however there’s defiance in her voice when she meets Telegraph Sport at England’s Loughborough headquarters. “It’s good that folks have opinions and are speaking about netball,” she says. “Finally, I’m the appropriate particular person for this job. The soundness, consistency and readability for the gamers was so vital and the gamers had been entrance and centre of that call.”
Stembridge is taking cost of England following the surprising departure Jess Thirlby (proper) – Joe Allison/Getty Photos
Stembridge, who honoured her father’s heritage and represented Wales throughout her enjoying profession, definitely has the credentials to achieve her second stint with the Roses. After greater than twenty years on the elite degree, her teaching CV just isn’t solely huge however transcends the netball sphere.
She has labored as a coach mentor at a few of the Premier League’s largest golf equipment and has additionally rubbed shoulders with coaches within the Girls’s Tremendous League. When pressed, she politely declines to call people from the soccer world with whom she has crossed paths, however insists the expertise has made her extra rounded as a coach.
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“I’ve been capable of work throughout what folks would describe as the highest 4 or 5 Premier League golf equipment,” she says. “However I’ve additionally been capable of work with some good coach builders who don’t sit in soccer however work in soccer, by way of mentoring. I’ve been fortunate to watch nice observe and be reassured that we’re getting some stuff actually proper in netball. I really like studying from completely different environments, areas and locations.”
Her sensible learnings on the courtroom are complemented by her educational aptitude off it. Stembridge is definitely Physician Anna Stembridge having accomplished a PhD in reflective observe in elite teaching, however there’s a shyness once I ask if she ever mentions her educational title within the netball world. “Generally whenever you go into teaching areas saying you’re a health care provider or having a PhD or being a tutorial comes typically with damaging connotations,” Stembridge, who began her thesis within the stress processes in elite teaching earlier than she turned a mom and completed it whereas elevating her two younger youngsters, says. “I see it as an enormous energy, however it’s important to determine your viewers and know the a part of your id you’re main with. Folks may assume that I’d begin speaking in phrases and sentences that don’t make sense however I don’t see myself as somebody who is aware of every little thing. I’ve all the time bought a lot nonetheless to be taught.”
Stembridge is a sports activities fanatic. Cricket is a well-liked exercise in her household – each of her youngsters play – and he or she references the latest eye-catching video of for the upcoming Girls’s T20 World Cup earlier than pivoting to one in all her teaching contemporaries. “I really like Sarina Wiegman,” she says, referencing the Lionesses’ European Championship success in 2022 and 2025. “What she’s executed for ladies’s sport is great.”
Sarina Wiegman has received three successive European Championships, having additionally taken the Netherlands to glory in 2017 – Markus Gilliar/Getty Photos
What, then, of netball? Amid the explosion of ladies’s crew sports activities which have traditionally been perceived as male – soccer, rugby, cricket – netball has discovered itself battling for air time, to push it ahead. The game had its golden second in 2018 when England received a historic Commonwealth Video games title for the primary time, with participation throughout the nation spiking within the aftermath. With the Netball Tremendous League nonetheless years off professionalism – the competitors posted alarming losses of greater than £1m in its lately – the legacy of England’s heroics eight years in the past appears virtually non-existent. Does Stembridge agree?
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“The profile of ladies’s sport has simply gone growth within the final 4 to 5 years,” she says, diplomatically sidestepping the query. “The profile of ladies’s sport, rightly so, has shifted into the areas the place we wish it to be. There’s extra competitors, extra air time, extra print time. As a society, one thing’s shifted, however we nonetheless have a protracted solution to go. There’s been a distinction by way of the final 4 years or so.” Considerably pointedly, she provides: “Credit score to these sports activities who’ve been profitable with trophies and medals and the way in which wherein they’ve promoted their sports activities and bought behind their sports activities.”
Netball in England has struggled to capitalise on its spike in reputation following the Commonwealth gold in 2018 – The England netball crew have fun successful gold/PA
Stembridge litters our chat with the three C’s she needs her crew to indicate this summer season: “readability”, “connection” and “confidence”. They’re buzzwords which masks England’s bumpy build-up – the crew misplaced collection towards New Zealand and South Africa on the finish of final yr and begin of this respectively – and they are going to be , their star shooter, for the Video games in Glasgow.
After lacking out on the rostrum on the 2022 version in Birmingham, England should win a medal – ideally gold – for netball to have its second within the solar once more.
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“Our want and our ambition hasn’t modified: we’re nonetheless completely going for a medal,” Stembridge, who will take a squad gentle on big-tournament expertise to the occasion, insists. “We now have solely 4 athletes in our present cohort who’ve been to a Commonwealth Video games earlier than, which not many individuals realise. With out Helen, we’re down to a few. Nonetheless, we have now some younger, thrilling prospects and people who’re enjoying brilliantly who haven’t performed but in a Commonwealth Video games. The followers must be assured.” Watch this area.
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