Beth Nichol is a woman with a lot on her plate. As captain of Blues netball this year, she’s been organising training and trials for three weeks already, preparing for an exciting but inevitably challenging season ahead, whilst the rest of us are still recovering from summer fatigue. We caught up with her to chat about the season ahead.
“It’s looking really good – we’ve just had a couple of sessions for fitness, doing some sprinting, basic ball skills and gameplay,” she told Cherwell. “It was interesting, actually – I had to plan the sessions and we let our trialists come to preseason in order to trial them for longer. Everyone’s picked up really quickly so it’s looking good for our intake this year.”
This year’s team seems to compare favourably with those of the past. “I think that we are on the up, I hope!” an enthused Nichol told Cherwell. “Obviously I would say that. A few years ago we lost a few big players who’ve been in the squad for a while and then last year was quite good because there was a lot of new people – maybe we didn’t achieve as well but it was a good year for development and a lot of people are getting trained up.
“So this year’s going to be good, because we’ve got a lot of people with experience al- ready. The people coming in look quite good, too, so hopefully this will be a successful year for us.”
As with all other University sports, the Varsity match with Cambridge is the one that draws the most attention every year. Nichol certainly hasn’t let it slip out of her mind amongst the chaotic first weeks, although as any captain would, she preached about a steady approach, taking each match one at a time. “We’ve already started talking about how we’re going to shoe the Tabs, but obviously that’s a long way off. We’re in quite a tough league because we got moved up to Midlands 1A so I think our first step is to try to compete well in our league. We will play Cambridge this year because they’ve moved up as well and we’ve got a meeting in three weeks, so we’ll see how that plays out.”
Of course, Cambridge isn’t the only team on her mind – with perennial powerhouses Loughborough looming in their first match, Nichol hopes the team can start the year with a resounding victory to kick-start their campaign.
Nichol spoke to Cherwell after she had just finished a sprinting session with the rest of the team. As someone who’s usually exhausted getting a sandwich from Tesco after a day in the library, I asked her what it was like being a student-athlete here at Oxford. “It is quite tiring. You have to learn how to balance your schedule quite well. I do physics, so it’s hard because I have a lot of contact hours – going to lectures after three hours of training is a little bit grim. I’ve had to learn time management, which I didn’t necessarily have before and was slightly detrimental to my studies in second year, but I’ve pulled it all back together so that’s good.”
On a personal note, Nichol has not let the pressure of being a blues captain get to her. “It’s quite fun because obviously I have more control, and because my committee’s really nice and we get along really well with Vicky (OUNC President) heading that up,” she says.
“I’m more nervous going to sessions because there’s more riding on it for me obvi- ously – every session I have to turn up with my A-game and be positive and make sure everyone’s involved. It’s a challenge, but it’s fun!”
“Challenging but fun” may well define the Netball Blues’ season this year, but if hard work really does pay off, then it’s hard to see why success can’t define it either
