Gant's Inside Gossip

Paula Gant, young Mavericks defender starts off a series of articles written by our squad members giving fans the opportunity to find out what being a SuperLeague player is all about...

This season began with incredible amounts of change for me, making the transition from the Mavericks Youth squad of last season to the Senior Squad, playing for the National Premier League team New Cambell and getting into the England Talent 2 Squad (effectively the England under 19's long squad). Whilst this was incredibly exciting, my personal life was also under great transformation.

In the summer I finished my A-levels and in September began my gap year, where in the New Year I plan to travel around South America, Europe and Russia before embarking upon studies at university in September 2008. So for the first time in my life I faced full time employment, a daunting fact, especially since to begin with, no one seemed to want to employ an inexperienced A-level student…. that is until Deb Jones heard that I was in need of a job and kindly volunteered the PE department at Sharnbrook School as my refuge, effectively becoming her and the entire department’s personal assistant, although she would probably argue that I am the departmental entertainment!

So when on Friday the 9th of November we had to leave work early to travel to Wales to play against Celtic Dragons, the boss had no problems, since she needed to leave at the same time as myself! The prospect of visiting Wales was met with a mixture of anticipation, since I had discovered that I would be in the starting seven, and dread, since I had spent six hellish days there in the summer during my Duke of Edinburgh Gold Expedition, and did not really fancy returning to the country that had provided me with a roller coaster of emotions, countless blisters, and ticks! However, on the coach journey all other emotions were eclipsed and only great anticipation remained.

It was great to be donning our fantastic new Under Armour kit in the knowledge that I would soon be making my debut performance for one of the top teams in the country. The team spirit was high as we prepared in the changing rooms and stepped on court. The game itself was a major step up from any thing I had previously played at Youth level, although the experience and skill that surrounded me certainly helped raise the level of my game, with Mavericks eventually winning.

The rigorous weekly training programme continued the following Thursday with sustained intensity, as we prepare for our next game against Northern Thunder at the University of Hertfordshire Hertfordshire Sports Village. However there was little time for rest as I travelled to Sheffield early on the Saturday morning, following my A-Level awards ceremony on the Friday evening, for the monthly England Talent weekend. These weekends are notoriously tough, as we train to prepare for our selection in January for the under 19 European Championships. Yet it cannot be considered daunting, since other members of the squad and coaches are made up of Mavericks, Kendra Slawinski being my under 19 head coach and Jo Munnion and Helene Hall the under 17 coaches.

Spending so much time with squad members and coaches from all three teams that I play for has allowed me to develop some fantastic friendships, which makes it less upsetting that I have no social life to spend with my friends outside of netball!

Some pictures of Paula in action last season for the Mavericks Youth Squad:

Photographs by Mavericks Official Photographer Kevin Jones