S03E01 Inside EMMNA Nationals: Growth, Grit & Game Changers

Welcome to the best Netball podcast ever.

I'm Carla and unlike my co-host for today, which is the lovely Lucy Goodman, I have absolutely no broadcasting credentials whatsoever.

I just really like Netball and no one's taken the microphone

off me yet.

I'm Lucy.

I'm one of the commentators for Sky Sports coverage of the Netball Super League and quite frankly, just a certified netball geek.

Welcome, Lucy.

Thank you so much for helping me to produce this episode today as my guest co-host.

I firstly, I need to tell our listeners that I feel very guilty for dragging you in to do this because honestly, you must be absolutely exhausted and we're going to come on to a very exciting episode all about where we've been all weekend at the MNAT National Tournament, which will be exciting.

excited to tell everyone else about.

So before we get into today's episode, I just want to mention a couple of things as we kind of set the scene for where we're up to right now.

The first one being that today is in fact exactly one year since we started the podcast.

So today is our birthday for the best netball podcast ever.

And wow, what a year it's been.

Somehow in that time, we've managed to put out 50 episodes worth of content.

which feels pretty impressive considering I'm fairly sure when we started this, we had absolutely no idea what we were doing.

Just basically got a microphone, love netball, ridiculous name and an unhealthy amount of confidence that people might actually want to listen to us talk.

And somehow you did.

And over the last year, we spoke to some genuinely incredible people.

We've had so many conversations that I've never imagined we'd get into.

We've laughed a lot and said things we probably shouldn't, learnt as we've gone along the way to build this amazing community around the podcast.

So I just want to say a massive thank you to every guest who said yes to coming on, all the people that we've spoken to over the last 12 months, and every single person that's listened to the episodes, that's followed us or commented or messaged, that's recommended someone or given us opinion or stopped us to say that they listened to the podcast.

It still feels bizarre, by the way, but thank you.

I also want to just have a mention to Chris because this whole thing started with the two of us and for personal reasons.

She can't co-host with me anymore, but there wouldn't be a Best Netball Podcast ever without her.

Also, thank you to Bex, our brilliant marketing manager, who somehow takes all the chaos a throw at her and turns it into something that looks like we might just know what we're doing.

Bex, you're awesome.

Thank you for everything you do.

Quite often dealing with me sending you another idea that starts out with, right, hear me out, Bex.

Thank you to everybody who's helped us create content, that's done the editing, shared posts, given a device, supported us, sponsored us, opened doors or simply cheered us on.

So happy birthday to the best netball podcast ever.

And the second point is just that today is episode one of our third series and we're really excited for what this series is going to bring.

Lots of netball talk, lots of chats, some great interviews and some awesome content.

So now let's get on with today's show with my lovely co-host Lucy.

How

are you, firstly? Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for having me.

And congratulations on the one year anniversary.

That's really cool.

As a former podcaster myself, I know the sheer amount of work that goes into putting on something like this.

So, yeah, congratulations and happy birthday.

Happy birthday? I say happy birthday, I suppose.

I am great.

I'm still somewhat on a high, although my voice would probably suggest otherwise.

It is on its last legs, I'm afraid.

So hopefully I don't come across too terribly.

But no, I'm absolutely buzzing.

It's been the most incredible four days of wall-to-wall, back-to-back netball.

The post-Nationals blues, as we call it, has already well and truly kicked in.

And I could quite honestly, genuinely just do it all again.