Driven to succeed

SUPER success: Debbie Hallas has seen her passion for netball rewarded with championships

MARTYN MEETS... Debbie Hallas, local champion in sport and business

THERE is still something strangely surreal about turning on Sky Sports and finding Oldham heavily featured.

And I’m not talking Latics in the Premier League archive stuff or Jim Quinn’s ill-fated Oldham Bears in SuperLeague Rugby history. I’m talking netball.

That’s right, you read it correctly first time. Netball.

It’s the most popular participation sport for girls in the country — although football is catching up rapidly — and remains the mainstream national curriculum sport for girls.

All of which came as a surprise to me, and I count myself as a sports buff, having been a sports editor for 15 years in a previous incarnation.

I don’t remember netball ever accessing my conscious thoughts in those day, yet here we stand with Oldham at the very epicentre of a national sport that is increasingly encroaching on the satellite television schedules.

And the driving force is Debbie Hallas, a 37-year-old single-minded, single-parent from Lees — a veritable volcano of channelled energy.

Debbie is one of that rare of breed of women, in my limited experience I hasten to add, who exudes an aura of total control over everything in her life.

In addition to running her own hugely successful business — which she started from scratch, filling every room in her home with products — Debbie has become head coach of Oldham Netball Club, which last year won the National League for the first time, and heads the franchise for Northern Thunder.

Thunder is the squad of 12 girls — seven of whom are members of the Oldham club— which last year won the Fiat Netball SuperLeague in front of a huge audience and Sky Sport’s all-seeing, all-pervading cameras.

Yet Debbie still finds time to take 10-year-old son Daniel to his football on Saturday mornings. Just like a host of mums across the nation.

Sport is clearly in her genes, but as we chatted over coffee and, I can exclusively reveal here, a huge sausage muffin for this consummate athlete, as the passion for her sport oozed from every pore, I also sensed an equilibrium, a balance to her hectic life.

She takes everything in her considerable stride — and they are big strides for a woman of five feet seven and a half — “And the half is important,” she told me sternly, before breaking into a breathtaking smile which, I suspect, charmed many an umpire in her playing days.

It’s a smile which takes away any possible offence, not that I encountered such, but while there is certainly a hard edge, a competitive streak which runs through her and, while I wouldn’t like to be on the wrong end of an earbashing, Debbie is essentially a lovely person.

Which is unusual, because such types don’t normally rise to the top in the ultra-competitive world of elite sport.

There needs to be a dedication, a selfish streak which tends to set apart serial winners and those of us who make up the slipstream.

Maybe because Debbie’s own playing career never reached the heady heights — “I was ok, I played for Oldham and the North-West, but I never made it to England level...you had to be exceptional” she offers with a shrug and a bite on her butty which suggests she is comfortable with her playing career.

It is off court that Ms Hallas is world class. In everything she does.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here, for to understand the woman who has put Oldham firmly at the forefront of netball in this country we need to look at her origins in the game which dominates her professional and leisure life.

As a pupil at St Augustine’s RC in Werneth she was introduced to netball by teacher Clare Jaskolta.

Debbie was soon catching the eye of the town team squad and it was here she met Mike Greenwood, who was to become her mentor and friend.

Mike had come into netball through his wife, who played for the wives’ team when he was a serving soldier in Germany, and until his death last year was the man who lived and breathed netball in Oldham. His were the foundations of today’s supersonic success.

Debbie was soon travelling to tournaments across the country — “We had an old blue left-hand drive minibus which Mike had brought over Germany” — with girls a year older than herself.

At this point I ventured into the tactics of the sport, learning about wing defence and goal attack, the two-step rule and not being allowed in certain thirds of the pitch.

There were drawings on my notepad and I was soon engrossed. I made a mental note to take more notice the next time Northern Thunder are on Sky, not least so I can watch Debbie and see if she is animated at courtside because she exudes an air of calm that belies her surging, simmering passion for all things netball.

By her early 20s Debbie was playing all over the place and took what was probably a sensible decision to scale back her commitment and commit totally to the Oldham club.

In 1996 they were admitted to the national League and so began an odyssey that led to the culmination of Mike Greenwood’s dream when they won the national title.

They have been ever present in the top tier for eight years now and have nurtured one of the country’s top talents in Jade Clarke, who joined Oldham as a youngster and has represented England an every age level.

“Jade is now playing as a professional in New Zealand, where the sport is huge,” explained Debbie with more than a hint of barely restrained pride.

Alongside all of this Debbie has been growing Netball UK, the country’s leading supplier of all things netball from clothing and equipment, to balls and souvenirs. You name, Netball UK supply it.

The business dates back to when Debbie travelled to Australia for a tournament. “They were way ahead us,” she exclaimed, almost wide-eyed. “There we were in polo shirts and pleated skirts and they were in lycra outfits. We had to have some.”

On returning to the UK she spoke to her cousins Richard and Danny Doughty at Roche Valley Sewing, who manufactured dancewear and sports clothing.

Together they developed a range of netball clothing which Debbie sold on the internet. From those humble origins Netball UK has grown into a business with an £850,000 turnover.

Mike Greenwood’s son — also Mike — has joined as an equity partner and the company is now the major supplier of netball equipment in the UK.

The days when Debbie could hardly move at home for boxes of clothing and equipment are long gone, a 3,000 sq ft modern unit in Pennant Street houses the operation where two netball players, office manager Kerry Almond, who has just broken into the England squad, and warehouse manager Natalie Dawson, an Oldham player, are prominent members of staff.

It’s a far cry from the early days when turnover barely topped £20,000 per annum.

Restless as ever, and ambitious for her sport, Debbie has turned her attention to the SuperLeague.

“A few of us went to watch Northern Thunder playing at Liverpool and we were so depressed. The only people watching were a handful of parents.”

It was at that point Debbie and Mike Greenwood junior got their heads together to work out how best to take the Thunder franchise forward.

Debbie now works alongside Pam Hazelton, and the pair manage the whole Thunder show.

They have recruited Tracey Neville as coach — a master stroke, admits Debbie, for the former England player has a huge profile in the game as well as consummate skills.

And now they have conquered not only the club world, but the Fiat SuperLeague world too.

“All we need now is a court to match our skills, where we can continue to grow the club and give all these Oldham girls a real chance of playing sport.”

I wouldn’t bet against her. She has been a success at everything else so far.






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