Leeds Rhinos record-cap signing Jade Clarke determined to ensure netball’s continued growth and appeal

For 18 years she has seen every incarnation of her sport’s journey.

From the very amateur days of 2002, when this promising teenager from Manchester was asked for the first time to represent her country, through a near decade of working part-time jobs and playing in an evening for teams in the early days of Netball Superleague, to nine years spent Down Under, competing in the rather more professional set up of the ANZ Premiership.

Nearly two decades on, her career has come full circle, well almost, after the 36-year-old signed with Leeds Rhinos, the newest member of the Vitality Netball Superleague fraternity, just 45 miles along the M62 from her native Manchester.

Rhinos are a full-time set-up for a professional era, a long way from the sport that Clarke remembers.

“It’s just immense the progression it’s had. When I started the top level of competition was county level,” she tells The Yorkshire Post.

“We’ve gone from that to having franchises all over the country, selling out arenas.

“We want netballers to be role models, we want little girls saying ‘I want to be a netballer when I grow up’.

“And we can now say to them, netball can be your job – that was never an option when I started.”

Every sport needs an accelerant, and netball got it in April, 2018 when England’s Roses beat Australia in the final of the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Clarke was part of that team, playing in her fourth Games.

Back in Melbourne in 2006 for her first, the exploits of the women’s netball team barely registered. Twelve years later, their success was the story of the Games.

“It’s just unbelievable, great memories, it still gives me tingles when I think back. I often ask myself ‘did we really do that?’” says Clarke, as she reflects on the journey she had been on to reach that high.

“I’ve played through being a full-time student, and then working on and off, so it wasn’t until I went to Australia and New Zealand that I was able to play semi-professionally and thought I can do this as a job.

“Then Tracy Neville brought a full-time programme into England in 2016 and that was the first time we had professional contracts.

“It’s just these last few years where we’ve been able to put everything into our sport and I think the results have shown with us winning the Commonwealth Games.

“I always knew the team could do it, though I’m not sure anyone else in other countries thought we could break that glass ceiling.

“It was years and years of blind belief, and then you start getting the odd wins against Australia and New Zealand, that becomes a few times, then you can say ‘right we’re on a level with you now, we can really challenge you’.

“It’s been a really exciting journey, all the progress, all the hard work that people have put into it behind the scenes, to see that paying off.”

She was 34 at the time of the Commonwealth Games, and having seen all she had seen, could quite easily have gone out on top, but Clarke’s hunger could not be sated.

She returned to England to sign with Wasps, and played in the Netball World Cup last summer in Liverpool when the hosts were unable to back up their Commonwealth triumph.

Leeds Rhinos is her ninth club and a new challenge, given they are a new team. “It’s going to be my last few seasons in Superleague and I wanted to be closer to home this year and that coincided with this opportunity for Leeds Rhinos,” she says.

“It’s closer to home, it had what I’m looking for. Dan Ryan (head coach) has created a great full-time programme, so it gives me more opportunity to train and I’m just really excited about the team he’s put together, it’s a good mix of youth and experience.

“It’s exciting to be able to start something new with a number of individuals coming together to make our mark and create our own culture and environment.

“I think I’ve got a few years left, I just go by what my body tells me. Not a lot of people have gone on this long, but I just really love the game.

“I’ve always been taught by my mum since I was little just to take hold of every opportunity, it’s what I’ve always done and so I definitely have a few more seasons left in me.

“When you’re an athlete you’re never satisfied, you’re always looking to the next thing. I’d love for us to win a World Cup, whether I’m there or not I want to be part of it and contribute as much as I can.

“That’s something on the list. I’d also love to win a sixth league title with Leeds.”

There is also room to learn, parts of her game to improve, even though next week she heads off Down Under with the England Roses as one of the 16 best netball players in the country, looking to extend her record-breaking haul of 175 caps.

“I like to learn, and I feel as though I’ve got so much still to learn. Dan can help me with that, he plays to a very high level himself. He’s a great attacker so he can help me a lot with my attacking game. And Maggie (Birkinshaw), the assistant coach, played wing defence for England, I can learn a lot from her.

“There’s going to be a lot of young players keeping me energetic, keeping my motivation going, so that’ll be great.”

As much as the playing – and like everyone she hopes the Rhinos can be playing in front of fans come the Superleague opener in February – Clarke’s role with Leeds is as much about spreading the gospel of netball to the younger generation.

“We need to make this sport accessible, that’s something I’m passionate about,” says Clarke, mindful of how damaging the coronavirus pandemic could be to interest in her sport and many others.

“We haven’t had a franchise in Leeds for so long, we want to make it accessible, have the pathways for little girls to come and watch and be active.

“We know there’s a drop-off when girls get to secondary school and we don’t want that to happen.

“After the Commonwealth Games there were about 100,000 more women who got out there and played netball and we don’t want to lose that, we want to keep pushing, showing that women are still playing sport so we can keep that momentum.

“I am confident it will come back strongly because the netball community is so loyal, they are so resilient, they are flexible, they are so hungry to make it work.”

But the sport needs ambassadors like Clarke, driving that interest.

“I’d love to get involved with the local clubs,” she added. “That’s what I did after the World Cup, I had a bit of a break, travelling around working with schools and clubs and I just found it so rewarding.

“Here at Leeds there’s going to be lot of opportunities to get involved with local schools and clubs. It’s so important to me, we want to be role models.

“It doesn’t matter what level you play at, whether it’s at England level or your local league, everyone needs sport and it’s so important for women that they can see it as an option for them.

“If you have a bad day at school you can go and do your sport, see your friends, it’s so good for your well-being and mental health to get out there and compete, and kids should be out there playing.

“I remember my first ever netball session and the coach saying to me ‘well done for being so aggressive’. It’s not something girls hear a lot when they’re little.

“You want to be out there, you want to be aggressive, to be competitive; it just makes you feel alive.”

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Thank you, James Mitchinson. Editor.