‘Ten days in Lionesses’ den and I wanted to stay forever’

Wow was Liv Tchine’s first impression.

Can I stay here forever, she asked.

She added, “This will be all we own in the future.”

Although England’s prolific goal-scorer Tchine and her team-mates recently toured a top-tier sporting promised land, netball’s kingdom is modest.

These Roses players are aiming for World Cup glory in 2027 and gold at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2026.

They are among the top three million netball players in England who compete at least once a year, making them the vanguard of the sport’s professional era. Men play as well, but the majority of the players are women.

Instead of lamenting encroachment on netball’s ancestor’s legacy, Tchine and co. draw inspiration from the World Cup-winning Red Roses and Lionesses.

Similar to football’s Women’s Super League in the mid-2010s, the Netball Super League is now officially licensed, but funds are tight.

Players are informed of potential rewards in the future. Although not always, those rewards seem like a million miles away.

The “wow” moment for Tchine, a standout for the London Pulse side that won their first Super League title this season, occurred at the Lionesses’ luxury hangout.

In a remote, unobservable area of Derbyshire countryside, St George’s Park is located. A modest private drive off a hedge-lined B road opens the door to a world that most sportspeople would not otherwise dream of.

“Imagine if netball had this kind of facilities,” Do you realize how ill-fated that would be?

Tchine was reacting to his first visit to the Football Association’s state-of-the-art national team training facility, according to his Instagram video diary. The green, green grass of England’s home, the recovery rooms, and the gym.

Before the autumn series against Jamaica and New Zealand, England’s netball players spent a week there preparing for the game.

Tchine tells BBC Sport, “I would happily move if we could just stay here forever.”

“So, so good. For ten days, we were there. Truly, the facilities were incredible.

We were just like, “One day netball could definitely have something like this,” I thought the entire time.

2026 games will be announced this week, which will mark the second season since the relaunch of Super League.

According to Tchine, Pulse are in “the best position we’ve ever been in.”

The competition is expanding. Attendance increases by 42% in 2025 from the previous year’s average of about 1,500. In contrast, the first Women’s Super League football season, which was followed by a reboot in 2014, attracted average crowds of 728 (up from 562 in 2013).

Tens of thousands of women’s football fans are now almost commonplace, but that didn’t just happen overnight.

Tchine, a 24-year-old south Londoner, was enthralled by the portraits of England’s football players lined St George’s Park corridors.

She says, “I sincerely hope that if I’m still playing in ten years, we’ll be playing at the same level as the Lionesses and the Red Roses.”

Both of them did a fantastic job of getting results this summer, and they were both absolutely fantastic. It’s encouraging to see women’s sport reaching levels they’ve never before.

Although women and girls are drawn to football, rugby, and cricket, Netball England trumpets participation numbers.

More girls under the age of 18 played football (16%) than netball (15.4%), according to Sport England figures released by The Times in November 2024.

Football has increased by 2%, while netball has stagnated for the previous five years.

England Netball’s executive Fran Connolly warned a parliamentary committee that any “disproportionate focus on growing football… will have a detrimental impact on other women’s sports, especially those that do not have the financial backing of a male counterpart,” when the effects of the Lionesses’ Euros triumph in 2022 became clear.

England Netball is now chaired by Baroness Sue Campbell, who successfully advocated for more female participation while serving as the FA’s director of women’s football.

Moments are important. Within months of England winning gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, according to YouGov figures, 130, 700 women started playing netball or playing more frequently.

27 February: The Netball Super League debuts

Introducing equipment: