Though she may no longer be with us, Beverley Watson* had a positive impact on netball in NSW will live on forever.
Organisation is key to success and without a good team manager, teams cannot achieve what they set out to do. Luckily for the teams that Beverley Watson looked after, she was a great team manager.
Known as Bev to those closest to her, she had involvement in the grassroots with Hills District (where she served as President), Scone and Wyong, but it was at the elite level where she really came into her own.
Watson served on the Executive Committee of Netball NSW and was the team manager of the NSW 21U side for a whopping 21 years. So effective was she at her role that she was selected to be the Australian Team Manager for the World Youth Cup in Fiji in 1992.
In an era when netball didn’t have the professional resources it does today, Watson stood out for her mastery of logistics and operations, ensuring the best possible preparation for her teams.
When the National Netball League started in 1997, Watson was named as the inaugural team manager of the Sydney Sandpipers – a fitting role for a woman of so many skills.
In 1991 Watson was a part of the Organising Committee for the Netball World Cup in Sydney and went on to transcend the sport as a volunteer at the 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games before being selected as part of the Doping Control Team at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
Every time she served the sport, even in her final days, she did so with a smile.
She was inducted into the Netball NSW Hall of Fame in 2022.
*denotes deceased
