Ettalong Eagles Netball Club History
In December, 2001, Woy Woy Leagues Club approached Sandy Watts and Kelly Bond about sponsoring a netball club. At this time they had been playing in the Senior 2 division in an independent team. There was also a group of girls playing as individuals in the Senior 1 division who were always looking for reserves and it seemed like a great idea to combine as a Club. Unfortunately, it was too late in the year to form as a Club and commence in the 2002 competition.
At the beginning of 2002 there was a team of 9 year old friends all wanting to play together. As these girls had never played Chris Wilson agreed to Coach the team and Sandy Watts came on as their Manager and the whole team was taken to TKT to play their first season.
At the end of the 2002 season, Chris Wilson, Sandy Watts, Kelly Bond, Kristi Barry, Melissa McRae, Ros Ferguson and the late and much missed Suzanne Richley made moves to start the new Club, Ettalong Bowling Club then came on as our sponsor and Ettalong Eagles was formed starting with 4 senior teams, 2 Junior team, 1 Sub Junior and 1 Learn to Play.
The Junior team were bought over from TKT and were renamed Wings - this team still to this day has 4 of it’s original members with others moving on due to representative commitments.. The other junior / sub junior and LTP teams were formed from girls that had never played before. In our first year we had 4 teams taking out Premierships.
With the exception of Wings the original Executive Committee made a concerted effort not to recruit players from other Clubs in our Association as it seemed to defeat the purpose of starting a new Club, our theory was to build the Association to make a stronger competition for everyone.
Over the years the Committee has changed with Chris Wilson moving into an Association position, Kelly Bond moving to Ballina and with the recruitment of assets Di Rainbow, Narelle Wilson, Gima Crowdy and Jane Leivesley now holding positions on the Executive as well as some very motivated people moving into Coaching positions.
We are proud of the achievements of Ettalong Eagles in the past five years and would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those players, parents, Coaches, Managers and Committee members that have stuck it out through the tougher times for the benefit of the kids and the game. We thank you.