Gippsland Storm Elite Development Netball Club has continued its recent run of success with five of its nine squads making finals and two teams walking away with premierships at the Waverley Netball Centre.
The premiership wins in December were the precursor to an exciting time for Gippsland Storm, a club approaching the very significant milestone of developing some of the best netball talent in the region for the past 25 years.
Founder and former president of Storm, Mike Spain, recently reflected on the enormous growth of the club and its myriad of highlights, including winning the 2006 Division One state league, with coach Simon O’Shanassy at the helm.
“It all started with one 17-under squad entered in the spring season of 1998 at the old Royal Park Netball Stadium, before the new complex was built, and the competition was run by Netball Victoria,” Spain explained.
“The squad was the 15-under representative squad for the Casey region, I was the president of the Casey Region at the time and saw this as an opportunity to give the country kids exposure to the best junior competition in Victoria.
“They made the finals in this first season and the parents from that first junior squad formed the basis of Storm’s first committee.”
Taking advantage of this momentum, Spain approached Robyn Pymm to coach for Storm, after Casey won the Country Cup 1999.
From there, the basis of this first Storm senior squad was built predominantly from the Casey region.
Storm started out as ‘Eastern Storm’ before merging with Gippsland to form ‘Gippsland Storm’ in 2000.
Since Storm’s inception, well over 2000 junior and senior netballers from the outer reaches of the Gippsland region have benefited from Storm’s Elite Development Netball system, with many Storm juniors making state squads each year, and some playing at national and international level.
“The majority of the success of the ‘Storm System’ is due to the tireless dedication of Simon O’Shanassy as senior coach for Gippsland Storm, for over twenty years,” Spain said.
Strom will be conducting its 25th Autumn Presentation Night towards the end of June 2023.
There are so many former players Storm have lost contact with over the years.
If you would like to attend this 25th celebration, to catch up with old friends, please forward your details to email: info@gippslandstorm.com.au for more information.
Also check out Storm’s Facebook page.
