It started with a Tweet…
In late 2020 Kitking CEO Dips Patel picked up a tweet from PE teacher Carla Paterson where she asked: “Why do PE shorts for female PE teachers not fit right?”. During conversations Dips discovered that Carla had the idea of starting a netball club because the nearest one was 20 miles away. Dips, with his grassroots sports knowledge and coaching experience was keen to support her ambitions. In February 2021 Dips reached out to Carla to find out where she was at with the idea of forming a club. Carla believed she faced a number of barriers that made her hesitant on starting, her plan was to delay until September. Dips coached her to “get going and get better” and suggested a tester event in May 2021.
6 months later Carla is now the proud founder of Hatch Warren Tigers Netball Club which has 100+ girls playing Netball. Carla is building the community with the support of the whole committee and utilising sport as a tool to learn new skills on and off the court. With coaching from Dips Carla has used Dips’ C+L+U=B model philosophy, to encourage youngsters to step up and lead areas of the club.
How Carla founded Hatch Warren Tigers Netball Club:
By Creating a Community
Carla realised the nearest junior netball club in the area was over 20 miles away. It was clear there was an opportunity to create a local community of netball loving girls. She worked with a local school on gaining access to an outdoor and indoor court for the girls to train, as well as advertising the club to local players.
Through Supporting Leadership roles within the club
Carla recruited 7 additional coaches and created a committee of 7 members to run the club on a day to day basis. Alongside that, she encouraged girls from different age groups to take on leadership positions. One example is an U13 player being the newsletter editor. What a great way of engaging with the players, and giving them great experiences that will help them in their future successes.
By Unifying the Club through Kit
Carla worked on the Hatch Warren Tigers brand using the popular free graphic design app Canva. With the support of KitKing and Dips Patel the Tigers are now a Nike netball club. They look and feel amazing and the coaches are hoping this confidence will help them win games this autumn.
By Creating a sense of Belonging for the club and wider community
The Tigers Facebook page is really engaging. You can clearly see the sense of belonging from the players, parents and coaches.
Quote From Carla Paterson
‘We are so grateful for the help and support given to us by Dips and the team at KitKing. With their guidance they have helped us to build a foundation and community of young netballers. In only a few short months, our club has grown from an idea on paper to a fully fledged junior netball club! We now have over 100 girls participating, 6 squads ranging from U11 to U16 and recruited 4 development coaches, working towards their level 1 or level 2 UKCC Netball Coaching qualification. We hope to extend this over the coming seasons. With the support of Dips and KitKing, we are now a Nike netball club, which has enabled us to provide our players with their own personalised kit, which has created a fantastic buzz within our community. Players are proud to put on the infamous orange jersey - even outside of the club! We can't thank the team enough and look forward to continuing our club's journey.”
KitKing has a real passion for working with clubs to help them become better. For more information on how KitKing helped HWT and how we could help your club please contact our team sales@kitking.co.uk.