How England set about ending that run of global success when they take to the court at Glasgow's £113 million ($178 million/€131 million) Emirates Arena will be particularly fascinating given their breakthrough achievement against Australia in January.

Successive victories at Bath and Wembley Arena secured England a historic first series win against the world's number one team, who they had only ever beaten twice before in a sequence of more than 60 games.


"The sport is growing," commented the England captain, Pamela Cookey. "This week has been amazing. We're glad we can put a performance in to keep building the sport. Our goal is the 2014 Commonwealth Games. That is what we are working towards and we're getting there.

"After these performances, we're definitely knocking on Australia's door. I'm not going to say we are there yet, but if we can do this consistently, we will build towards getting there.

"They have their professional league over there [in Australia and New Zealand]. Our Superleague is getting bigger and bigger and the more players we can get playing the sport, the more competition we have."

While optimising performance at elite level has been a major concern of England Netball, the other main task Cookey mentioned, that of getting new players into the sport, has also been exercising minds. And the results of the exercise have by no means pleased everyone in the sport.

A look at the England Netball website offers immediate evidence of a new approach to recruitment. On it is a picture of three England players, including Cookey, all in traditional red - but they are in red dresses, and dressy black high-heeled shoes. They look, in short, ready for the red carpet at an award ceremony rather than a netball court. It is a striking advert for the forthcoming Test series against South Africa...

Ready for the red carpet? England's elegant players advertise the forthcoming series against South Africa

That image gives an immediate clue to the England Netball policy on recruiting new talent to the game. Another aspect of the policy - the unveiling of three new girly mascots in March - provoked widespread criticism. Writing in one national newspaper, Claire Cohen described them as "Sex doll meets Bratz meets Manga", and flatly disagreed with the England Netball line that the mascots "Wild Rose, Petal and Necta are very modern and designed to attract the young but will hopefully appeal to the not so young as well!"

The same approach is evident in a new feature on the site - Netball Nails. The headline - England Netball showcases exclusive Netball Nail designs - sits above a series of how-to pieces complete with step-by-step illustrations, the whole process working in partnership with "Olympic luxury nail artist, Sophy Robson."

England Netball has now launched a Netball Nails section on its site

The aim is to "engage bright young women in the game and ensure that tomorrow's sporting stars are always a step ahead when it comes to the latest nail art trends."

The introduction continues: "As part of the partnership, the Olympic nail icon has created a series of unique Netball Nail designs created especially for short nails - so girls can still be super stylish whilst keeping the umpire happy!

"The seven styles, each with their own unique name, have been created exclusively for the England Netball team, but can be easily replicated at home so sports-loving ladies everywhere can enjoy the look too."

And so it was that Tangerine Dream nails, Animal Passion nails, Girl on Fire nails et al were launched to the media in Chelsea by Cookey and her fellow England players Stacey Francis and Natalie Haythornthwaite.

But for all the criticism which the girly approach and Rose Buddies mascots have earned, England Netball's Director of Development, Fran Connolly maintains that the strategy is working well - and getting results.

England Netball's Rose Buddies mascots have polarised opinion within the sport

"Our mascots are very much alive and kicking," Connolly told insidethegames. "We realise that they caused a strong reaction from some parts of our sport.

"They have helped align us to target a new market we were trying to access. Every time we used the mascots we found that they were well recognised and that people wanted photos of them.

"They are a solution to the challenge of how you market the sport to our consumers, how you attract potential members when you know many of them may not be 'sporty'. We felt we needed to create an image that was a bit more like real life.

"So the reaction to the mascots almost backed up our idea that we had got to change our focus.

"We were not looking for athletes so much as regular girls who might not be regular sporting competitors but who might find netball fitted in as something they were used to from school.

"We have also couched a lot of our material on the site in a way which reflects the way young people use language, sometimes almost texting language. The idea is to maximise engagement with the sport.

"Since 2009 we have had a 34 per cent increase in terms of participation in netball throughout England. There has been a steady increase over the last four years, but we have seen a slightly more significant increase in membership in the year following the Olympics.

"We did put on lots of promotional events during the Games, such as Pay-and-Play opportunities linked to the live events going on in the centre of London."

The largest draw in terms of participation has been the Back To Netball initiative, which has centres all over England and has attracted more than 32,000 women into playing.

Of those, around 88 per cent have played netball previously, most typically at school, although the sport has been new to the remaining 12 per cent.

"An analysis we conducted two years ago showed the returners to the sport were typically between 25 and 34," Connolly added. "But when we re-did the stats more recently we found we were attracting a lot more participants who were younger or older than that group.

"We now have players from 16 to 60 taking part regularly in the scheme. What's happening in a lot of cases is that some mums are now coming into the sessions and bringing their daughters with them."


The formula certainly seems to be working well as far as Sport England is concerned. The funding body has increased its support of netball over the 2013-2017 cycle to £25 million ($39 million/€29 million), which represents a 34 per cent increase on the 2009-2013 funding.

Paul Clark, chief executive of England Netball, believes there have been a number of factors for this continuing vote of confidence.

"Firstly, they have looked at our track record," he told insidethegames. "We have demonstrated through our Back to Netball programme that we can deliver increased participation and we have been one of a handful of sports which could sustain that over a four-year period.

"And at the elite end our 3-0 win over Australia in January was the first time ever we had beaten the world number one team in a series."

Plans are in place to maintain the gains recently made by the elite players and their under-21 counterparts, who finished second in the Home Nations event, playing against senior teams from the other home countries.

England's under-21's have an upcoming tour of the Caribbean in which they will play three matches as preparation for the World Youth Championships which take place in Glasgow's Commonwealth Arena from August 22 to 31 - an effective test event for the 2014 Games.

Meanwhile the senior team will be warming up with that Test series against South Africa in the UK in September, after which there are plans to visit South Africa in December to play the hosts again, and also Malawi.

"The important thing is to get regular exposure to good level opposition," said Clark. "And we also need to get used to the different style of play which the African teams employ."


In January 2014 preparations will continue with an invitational event involving England, New Zealand, England A and New Zealand.

"We are going into the Commonwealth Games as Team England, and we want to emerge from Glasgow with the best colour medal we possibly can," Clark said.

It would be great news, clearly, for England to earn further success at what will be so close to a "home" Games. But even if they aspire to the heights, is there a sense that netball itself can ascend to the Olympic podium?

"I think that's the $1 million question," Clark admitted. "One of the main issues is that netball is not played in some of the big and influential countries such as the United States, China and Russia. There are 70-odd countries across the world which play netball, but they are predominantly Commonwealth, English-speaking countries.

"So the first big challenge is to get netball played in some of these other countries. And the second challenge is to get the sport introduced onto the Olympic Programme, which is not an easy process, as we see from squash, which has been trying to get into the Games for around 30 years now.

"There is also the fact that netball is a team sport and will therefore only bring one medal at the Games, in contrast to sports such as athletics or cycling, where there are numerous medals to be won.

"So I think there are a range of factors involved in getting netball into the Olympics, and the honest answer is that I can't really see it happening in the next 20-30 years. But that doesn't mean to say that we won't keep pushing and fighting for it."


Does it matter, though?

"From a performance side the Olympics are always the goal for your elite team. And participating in the Olympic Movement would be hugely beneficial in terms of commercialism and recognition for the sport.

"But we do have a multi-sport Games to aspire to - the Commonwealth Games - and this has proved to be a highly successful and exciting event over the years.

"As a sport we are very ambitious and we want to be the number one in the world, which is something we can achieve through the world championships and the Commonwealths. The Olympic Games would not necessarily be harder than those competitions. There are other vehicles that will enable us to get to where we want to go."

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.