Homeless Coventry netball club seeks money for new courts

Earlsdon Highway won the Coventry and Warwickshire Premier Division title last season

A netball club without a home is trying to raise an extra £45,000 to build new courts.

Highway Netball Club in Coventry has five senior teams, seven junior teams and more than 100 members.

But rising costs forced it to leave its home in 2016 and it said there was a "real shortage" of courts in the city.

It has now formed an association with Earlsdon Rugby Club, where it plans to build two new ones and £170,000 has been raised so far.

Club vice-chair Annette Mirfield said for many years it played at the Highway Club on the A45, but fees for the floodlit courts rose to £90 an hour after a change in ownership in 2015.

Since then, it has played wherever it could and last season the club spent £10,000 on hiring courts.

The club now has planning permission to build a new site at Earlsdon and has paid a consultant to make applications for grants, getting it close to its goal.

Planning permission, however, expires in July 2024 and Ms Mirfield said the club was "running out of ideas" to get it over the line.

She said it would be "so much easier" to run a club with a permanent home.

Wider problem

Storage is a "huge issue" at the moment, she said, with all the kit and nets being stored either at the rugby club or the chair's garage.

A new home would also create a "much more social environment" she said, and make the club less fragmented on match days.

Coventry hosted international netball during the Commonwealth Games in 2022, but Ms Mirfield said the lack of facilities for the sport was a wider problem.

"We are not the only club without a home ground, but we are the largest," she said.

Despite all the difficulties, Earlsdon Highway's top team went last season unbeaten and won the Coventry and Warwickshire Premier Division title.

Ms Mirfield said it had been an "incredible achievement" in the circumstances.