The first head coach of Nottingham Forest’s ground breaking netball team wants to get out into the community to grow the sport ahead of their inaugural season in Super League.
Chelsea Pitman believes she has assembled a first team squad capable of competing for trophies as Nottingham Forest embark on an exciting new chapter of sporting expansion.
Forest’s netball team, which was first announced as part of this year’s new look Super League back in May 2024, will play their first game on March 16 at London Pulse.
They will train at the University of Nottingham and play their home games at the Motorpoint Arena.
The Australian-born ex-player says they hope to attract 5,000 fans to each game.
“We are so blessed to be playing every single one of our home games at the Motorpoint arena,” said Pitman.
“For the girls to be able to call that their home, it’s really exciting.
‘we want to get out into the community and release our brand of netball’
Chelsea Pitman
“We’ve got a job to do to make sure we get our fan base to our home games.
“But we also want to get out into the community and release our brand of netball, and make sure people are not just involved in the football side of Forest but the netball side too.”
Championing grassroots sport is a priority for Forest and the team is passionate about encouraging young women and men to get involved in netball at the lower levels.
The club has launched its ‘community roots’ initiative, hosting its first event in November.
The event, which took place at Nottingham High School, gave girls the opportunity to play netball with the guidance of Chelsea and her experience of high-level netball.
Forest Netball’s creation is part of a multi-sport initiative, an idea pushed by the club’s owner Evangelos Marinakis who developed a similar format at his former club Olympiacos.
Forest said in a statement: “Evangelos Marinakis has always shown a strong commitment to developing a more diverse and inclusive sporting portfolio, which he has successfully implemented at Nottingham Forest’s sister club, Olympiacos.
“The opportunity to extend our brand into netball was too good to be missed.
“Netball is the most played team sport by women in the UK with over 3million people playing annually and over 8.5m people tuning in to watch during 2023.”
Forest have assembled a 10-strong squad of players for the eight-team league.
The team has homegrown talent in abundance, but also features Uganda international Falidah Kadonda and South African goal shooter Rolene Streutker.
“With the ten [players] we have, we have the capability of getting to the finals,” said Pitman.
“We’re in it to win it.”
You can purchase tickets for Forest Netball’s 2025 Super League fixtures here: https://tickets.motorpointarenanottingham.com/shows/show.aspx?sh=FOREST24
You can watch Forest Netball in the Netball Super League live on both Sky Sports and BBC.
