Guthrie, who won gold with England at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and captained her country at a home World Cup in 2019, was named on the Queen’s New Year honours list last week and already the Island’s governing body is getting requests from youngsters who could one day follow in the former Le Rocquier student’s footsteps.
Adults are also keen to get involved or get back involved in the sport and Linda Andrews, the president of the JNA, is delighted with the numbers of people coming forward.
She explained: ‘Our netball development officer gets daily requests now, it was like this after the World Cup and now Serena has got her MBE it is happening again.
‘It is fantastic to have a range of people who want to get involved in the sport. We have done a lot of good things and we are planning in 2020 to expand our programmes to make sure there is enough space for people to get involved.’
Andrews added: ‘Having more people coming to us will mean a need for more people to run these programmes, but that isn’t a bad thing – the more people who want to play the better.’
Guthrie will be heading home at the end of this month for a ‘Net Ball’ in her honour – on 31 January at the Radisson Blu.
