Netball stalwart gives grassroots development a push
Western Cape and Cape Town Primary School’s netball lifetime member, Doreen Slingers, from Pinelands, gave the Pep Mini-Netball Festival, supported by SA Schools Netball, a thumbs up over the weekend.
The former player, umpire, teacher and administrator, grew up between Elsies River and Athlone.
She attended St Andrews Anglican School, Norwood Central Primary School, Trafalgar High School and studied teaching at Hewat Training School in Athlone.
She started playing netball at the tender age of seven and she has never stopped being involved in the sport ever since.
A retired principal at Cypress Primary School, Western Cape Sport School, as well as an acting principal at Regina Coeli Primary, Slingers’ passion for community service is rooted in her love for children.
In 2012, the Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport awarded Slingers with a scroll that recognised her unselfish contribution to shaping sport in the Western Cape.
Slingers, alongside her co-founders, Petro Stanley (Free State) and Nellie Makhatini (Gauteng) drafted the Mini Netball Programme, Rules and Regulations. The Mini Netball Festival was organised by PEP and the South African Schools Netball.
Slingers said they researched global trends around netball, before writing down a programme to introduce netball at grassroots level, while empowering girls.
On Saturday morning, as rain drizzled over the south peninsula, Slingers was the project manager at the second instalment of the mini-netball festival, at Zwaanswyk Academy.
“When we came here, it was pitch dark and we could not get going. But here we are, the kids are enjoying themselves. Just have a look at their faces, you are able to decide for yourself,” she said.
In 2019, Slingers was inducted into the sport legends hall of fame by the non-profit organisation, Play Sport 4 Life.
She has served on the regional, provincial and national sporting boards for athletics and netball.
“Netball is predominantly a ladies game as you know. That is why it is one way of empowering the youth, by getting them to play netball. At the same time you do not only teach them the skills of netball, you teach them other values,” she said.
The former national coordinator and deputy president at the SA Primary Schools Association, Slingers, was the chef de mission for a multi-coded tournament organised by the Confederation of Schools Sports Associations in Southern Africa a few years- ago.
In her work experience over the past 60 years, she conducted a netball coaching course in Namibia and was the manager of the under-16 netball national team in Zimbabwe. She was the chef de mission of the under-18 schools netball tour to south-east Asia, Portugal and Singapore. She also headed the delegation of the SA under-19 netball team to the United Kingdom.
“Netball starts at grassroots level. You do not become a Protea player without having started at grassroots. This is where it starts. At the end of the day, we hope we can develop the potential of our little ones,” she said.
