Kathleen Moss, 87, has been involved in the sport for over 70 years

Kathleen Moss hopes there is plenty more history to be made in the next 100 years after England Netball celebrated its centenary.

Moss, 87, has been involved in the sport for over 70 years and has played a leading role in netball in the north west in her time off the court.

The vice president of Greater Manchester County Netball Association served for almost two decades as chair of Greater Manchester, playing a role in the organising of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, having been a founding member of the county association in 1974.

The Oldham native’s contribution was recognised with honorary life membership of England Netball, and she was in attendance at the centenary celebrations hosted by the University of Huddersfield’s Heritage Quay.

And after seeing the development of the game over the last 100 years, Moss hopes the sport continues on its upward trajectory in the future.

“This is history and we shouldn’t lose history. Hopefully there will be more added to it,” she said. “The friends that you make are friends for life. It is definitely a family.”

Moss has been an active part of netball in Greater Manchester for over 50 years, and recalls just how much the game has changed since the Greater Manchester County Netball Association was formed in 1974.

“I was involved with England Netball in the 1990s, I was invited to be the host for international matches for the visiting teams,” she recalled.

“I went round to the matches, wherever they were played. We played New Zealand in Manchester. In those days, as a county we had to say how many beds we had for the visiting team. Times have changed a lot. We were all volunteers then.

“When the Commonwealth Games were in Manchester, I was on the organising committee for that. We had many meetings to decide how it was going to be arranged. It was four years in the making, planning how things were to go. It was a very friendly Games in Manchester.”

Distinguished guests at the centenary event included England Netball chair Baroness Sue Campbell and England Netball president and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Eboni Usoro-Brown.

They joined members of the netball community to honour the sport’s history through a series of panels and a special archive display.

England Netball have been awarded funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to preserve and celebrate the sport’s history with the aim of safeguarding it for years to come.

And Moss hopes to see plenty more players from Greater Manchester pull on the famous red dress, carrying on a proud tradition of talent coming from the region.

“We’re a very strong county,” she said. “We have produced many England players and England captains. When we came together as a new county, we had no money but we had a lot of strength in netball.”

Thanks to the National Lottery players, England Netball has been awarded a Heritage Fund grant to enable them to celebrate, preserve and share the rich history of the sport throughout its centenary year – England Netball Awarded Heritage Fund Grant to Celebrate and Preserve the Heritage of Netball | Eng…