London Pulse Netball Club teams up with Anchor Hanover

London Pulse – London’s Only Vitality Netball Superleague Team, has teamed up with Anchor Hanover, to provide netball coaching sessions for care home residents.

The sessions hosted virtually via Zoom are being live streamed into six Anchor Hanover care homes in London and come at a time when the government has announced their plans to help adults and children to live healthier lives, with 7.2million older people in England physically inactive.

The first coaching session took place on Wednesday, 22 July and was delivered by London Pulse Superleague and England Netball player, Kira Rothwell who showed residents techniques on how to pass the ball and shoot into nets.

Further sessions will be taking place and delivered by other players from the London Pulse Superleague.

The coaching sessions form part of Anchor Hanover’s broader programme of work to increase physical activity amongst older people across the country, helping to reduce social isolation and improve the physical and mental wellbeing of participants. It also follows on from their Summer of Sport campaign, which was launched over a week ago across all of their 114 care homes with residents participating in a range of sporting activities, the same week when the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics would have been held.

Kira Rothwell, London Pulse Superleague and England Netball player said:

Providing coaching to Anchor Hanover care home residents was one of the highlights of my lockdown! The residents were fun to talk to and engaged, especially when it got to the competitions! It just shows that there's a place for netball in all ages and an experience I'd love to do again.

Margaret Walker, aged 87, a resident at Anchor Hanover’s Rose Court care home, Southwark said:

It was a lovely session and I really enjoyed it. It was nice to see residents from other care homes and we were doing it together, it was fun. I would like to do it more often. I really enjoy living here because it’s a nice relaxed atmosphere and lots of interesting activities are organised like this one.

Sam Bird, CEO London Pulse said:

I’m delighted that London Pulse has worked successfully with Anchor Hanover to be able to deliver the first session. Anchor Hanover support our vision to connect with communities in London to play, watch and enjoy netball. These sessions create a great opportunity to work closely together, creating positive well-being and fun for the residents and to help them share their netball experience with families and friends.

Lucy Brown, Community Partnership Manager for Anchor Hanover London and Surrey care homes said:

Sport is a vital part of a fulfilled life for many people. As well as being a great way to exercise both the body and mind, sport such as netball provides opportunities to spend shared time with other people, strengthens our sense of community and can be a real focal point of  joy, so we are delighted that we have been able to enter into this partnership with London Pulse.