Hyde Park Thursday Netball Club (HPTNC) was set up by Debbie Downing in the Spring of 1994. Fed up of watching her boyfriend play football every Saturday, she thought it would be good to set up a netball club and invite some of the other girlfriends along to play some sport too. Although she hadn’t played netball since school, Debbie was very keen and driven so, one evening in March, she arrived at Paddington Recreation Park, with a set of home made bibs, a netball, a bunch of friends and not many of the girlfriends of the football players. Within weeks it grew to include friends of friends and the Club was born.

That summer we joined the North London Netball Summer League and got well and truly beaten (including our worst ever 7 goals to 77 defeat). However, it was all good practice and it spurred us on to greater things as by the end of our first season in the main League (1994–95) we gained promotion from the Fifth to the Fourth division. During our first summer break we went on the first of our ‘away tours’ to Spain, which was a great success.

By 1996 the Club had grown so much we entered two teams into the League. We had by then also moved to somewhat drier and more reliable training facilities indoors. More tours followed to Bournemouth and Malta, and in 2000, in order to deliver on our philosophy to try and give everyone a game we entered a third team into the League.

HPTNC has gone from strength to strength over our first ten years. Growing from five players that first night in 1994 to the current average of 25, the Club has managed to maintain a unique balance between absolute competitiveness and a friendly, welcoming attitude.

For the 2005–06 season our A team is in the First division, B team in the Second division, and the C team in the Third division. We also have our Legends team joining the League in the Fifth division. Long Live HPTNC!

Check out below some old pics from the archives for you to reminisce over/have a chuckle at (just click to enlarge them).