Umpires are rude, belittling, unfriendly and power crazed.
Played netball with Maidstone Thursday league for a season. My team was newly formed, fabulous women and none of us have played for a long while. We all joined because we were under the impression this was a fun, social place to have fun and meet other women whilst developing new skills and playing good netball. We were put into a league of well established teams that had played together for years and were immediately out of our depth. The umpires are a mother daughter duo of the rudest, most unfriendly women we have ever had the misfortune of meeting. They spoke to us like children, mocked us, picked on members of our team, had the foulest attitudes and were just seriously unpleasant to be around. We have found wonderful friends together as a team, but this is advertised as a friendly, social sport. It absolutely is not. We have signed onto a different organisation now as we have been so disheartened and disappointed by Play Netball in Maidstone. We are not the first team to leave, as we have heard from other teams members how much they dislike the umpires and find them so rude and unfriendly. They treat this like they are the queens of England Netball, when we are just playing in a park in Ditton. Embarrassing. Very happy to leave!