Netball Assoc, forms disciplinary committee

Press, 24 June 1985, Page 5

Netball Assoc, forms disciplinary committee

The Canterbury Netball Association has formed a disciplinary committee for the first time and players have been warned that physical violence will not be tolerated on the court.

All 600 teams in the competition were issued with a letter on Saturday which made the association’s stand clear.

Mrs Maire Erickson, president of the Canterbury Netball Association, said last evening that there had been incidents of physical violence in lower-grade matches controlled by player-umpires. Most incidents usually began with bad language.

Mrs Erickson said that the main reason for forming the disciplinary committee and issuing the letters was “to stop anything bad happening before it happens.”

She said that the association had always had a protest committee and the new

committee, formed at an executive meeting of the association on Tuesday, was an extension of that.

The disciplinary committee will have power to stand a player down for a certain number of matches or to ban her for the rest of the season if the offence is bad enough. “The time had come when players needed to know that there would be a penalty imposed if they could not control their tempers on the court,” said Mrs Erickson. All provincial associations were last year issued with a code of conduct from the New Zealand Netball Association.

“This sort of thing is not just happening in Canterbury. We are controlling 300

matches involving 600 teams every Saturday. We have ’very little trouble, considering the numbers.”

Mrs Erickson said that the letter made it clear that “no matter what the provocation, physical violence will not be tolerated on the netball court.” The letter said what the code of conduct was and that players could no longer make excuses saying they did not know about it. Mrs Erickson said that player-umpires were given steps to follow in the case of an on-court problem getting out of hand.