WHEN the Pembrokeshire Junior Netball League ended recently for 2017 someone who could take something of a deserved rest was Fay Omnet, who as well as coaching and umpiring spends time each week collecting the results and submitting them to the local papers every week from September to April.

She also collates all the voting of the ‘Players’ Player’, chosen by respective opponents, and also included in the published details as a nice way of recognising effort, which is something Fay fervently believes in since she has been involved in a range of sporting activities since early childhood and always shown 100% commitment.

“I love sport,” Fay told us, “and sister Gaynor and I have always played netball, hockey, and briefly ladies’ cricket.

“I also realise that it is important to keep active so today I swim, cycle and run (slowly!), taken part in a few Pembrokeshire Go Tri events as part of a team.

“We called ourselves ‘The Old Birds’ – and one year we won our age group but perhaps the fact that we were the only ones in our age group!

“Individually I took part in the CARTEN Cycle Ride last year and have also played the odd netball charity match in my quest to enjoy remaining involved in sport.”

Fay currently live in Pembroke with her husband of 20 years, Iain, and three teenage children, Lucy (17), Ben (15) and Lauren (13). I was keen for the children to participate in something active and all of them have been active in sport ever since they attended Golden Grove School and now that they are in Pembroke School.

They have all swum with Pembroke and the County team at various stages. Lauren also plays Octopush, Lucy and Ben run with the Harriers.

And Ben has in the last two years joined Pembrokeshire Paddlers.

Both Fay’s girls have played for U11/13 and U15s Pembroke Junior Netball and the Pembrokeshire Junior Netball League, and Lucy also went on to Pembrokeshire Hub for a season.

“I started to help out in the junior section about 15 years ago as secretary and assistant coach, working with Alice Watts, who was my coach when I was 13, in 1983, and that’s where my lifelong passion for netball started.

At that time Fay lived in Cresselly and I had just started Greenhill School and in her second year had a new PE teacher, Miss Karen Howley, who quickly picked up that she really enjoyed netball and told her to join a club – and her mother Christine Mathias taught at Bush School so knew Tracey Watts (Alice Watts’ daughter), who played netball.

“Soon afterwards I joined Pembroke Ladies Netball Club which had two teams in the Dyfed Ladies League which had two divisions. The first team was made up of adults and the second team made up of mainly teenagers. It was a brave move of Alice to put a team of youngsters and a couple of adults into the league and I think some players had tried to discourage it. But the only way to improve was to play and there was no junior league at the time.

“The first season, as this young team, we lost most of our matches but the following season, we won the second division and moved up. Also, I can remember Alice taking Collette Lacey, Alex Williams, Teresa McQuillan, Annie McQuillan, Rachel Skyrme and myself to Regional trials and a Welsh trial. I wasn’t successful but I know Collette, Teresa, Alex and Rach all went on to play in the Welsh Squad.

“I can remember thinking I’d really like to have a shot at that so picked up my training, then, during a match, I suffered a knee injury. The knee locked which then had to be straightened so I was put in a plaster cast.

“The knee recovered but the injury kept reoccurring, all the way through University (I used to play for Derby). Eventually, the last time the injury reoccurred, they discovered I had snapped my cruciate ligament. So, I never had the chance again to play at a higher level.

“However, one of my fondest memories of playing was in the Summer League, which was outside on the courts of the old Pembroke Dock Community School (now the youth centre). Mum would pick me up from 3rd Tenby Brownies where I was a young leader, drive to Pembroke Dock (changing in the car- very difficult with a seat belt on!) …and I would run onto court for a 6pm match.

“In 2002 Alice started a Junior League and Section within the club. She was looking for volunteers so I helped with the membership and at some of the training sessions. I eventually went on a Starting Out course for coaching netball and Q Award for umpiring. Since then the club has grown and we now have 50 junior and youth players who regularly train on a Tuesday night and play matches on Saturday morning.

“Six years ago we decided to have a Club Awards night for the girls. However, our funds were not going to stretch to buying awards shields but we’ve been very lucky generally with individual parents stepping up and purchasing the individual trophies for the players. A couple of years ago I decided to enter the Tenby Long Course Weekend to raise funds for Shields and we raised further funds by running raffles and managed to purchase Annual Award Shields.

“We’ve also held Charity Matches (Parents versus Players) and raised monies for Children In Need, Sport Relief, Pembrokeshire Cancer Care and this year’s charity is CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services), based in Haverfordwest.

"To date we have raised £700 for local and national charities. This year the U15s won the Charity Match convincingly and vote for a Parent Player at the match, which went to Colette Waters.

"The League finishes the season with the Summer Tournament, where players from all the clubs are pooled in their age groups and pulled out of a hat into teams. Also at this tournament the Players’ Player vote is also revealed for the U11s, U13s and U15s. It’s a great way to end the season.”

Having chatted to Fay Omnet for a short while it is easy to see her passion for netball and although she plays her role down there is no doubt of her enjoyment after so many years of participation – and local netball is indeed lucky to have someone of her total commitment involved.