The thirteenth annual Tshwane Netball Development Challenge was held at Korfbal Park in Pretoria this past weekend.

The main objective of this tournament, which is the brain child of Claudine Claassen (Tshwane Netball Vice President and Netball South Africa Development Officer) is to develop netball at grassroots level and take the sport to the people. The project is aimed at giving opportunities to develop the skills of those players at grassroots level who are not ready to play at provincial level yet.

Claassen’ idea has grown rapidly and today it is a tournament in which all seven regions of Tshwane are represented, while it is also supported by the Gauteng Provincial Government Department of Sport.

The seven regions covers the entire jurisdiction area of Tshwane, from Hammanskraal in the north to Olievenhoutbosch in the south and from Bronkhorstspruit in the east to Atteridgeville in the west.

Each year regions have to select their top players from their clubs to represent their region and all these teams then fight the battle at the challenge to become the next Tshwane champions.

There are three categories at the tournament. Each region can enter an under-16 team, an under-19 team and a team for deaf players.

According to Claassen they also make use of the opportunity to identify talent.  The selected players and officials form part of the Tshwane Development team and they are kept in a program with the support from Gauteng Provincial Government Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation as well as The City of Tshwane Sport and Recreation. The development team also gets the opportunity to participate at the provincial development tournament hosted by the Gauteng department of sport and from there on players get the opportunity to be selected into the Gauteng Provincial teams to play at the national championships, hosted by Netball South Africa.

For the past 3 years, the challenge had been dedicated to a certain cause. The 2013 challenge was dedicated in support of cancer awareness.  2014 was dedicated to embracing disability and the 2015 challenge was dedicated to woman and child abuse. Many of our players and officials have been affected by this.

This year the challenge was dedicated in support of anti-drug and substance abuse.

Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.

For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:

Rekord East

Rekord North

Rekord Centurion

Rekord Moot

For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord onFacebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram