Martin Parnell

At 5:30 p.m., Sept. 16, two teams faced each other on the floor of the gym, at the South Fish Creek Recreational Complex in Calgary’s southeast, determined to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest game of netball ever played.

Their target: 61 hours.

A week before, they had their only practice and a number of players had a chance to meet each other for the first time.

Some interesting facts about the 24-member squad: Eight team members were male and 16 female. Twelve were senior A players with Netball Alberta, five senior B and seven had little or no experience.

Among them a mountain guide and a pre-eminent fitness trainer. There was also an Olympian and a social media guru.

Julie Arnold of Netball Alberta was the glue that held the whole thing together. The logistics for this event were mind-boggling. Making it a Guinness Book of Records event means there were checks and counter-checks. Julie lined up over 70 volunteers for duties including umpires, timekeepers and witnesses. Then, there was the requirement to have the whole thing video- graphed, which meant continuous coverage for 61 hours.

One of the players, Lawrence Mafuru, recently arrived in Cochrane from Tanzania. He runs his own trekking company and takes groups up Mount Kilimanjaro.

Key volunteer roles were filled by Cochranites Dan and Pam Gossman, Bobbi Fridfinnison, Caroline Roth, Roy Ellis and Steve Cook.

The schedule stated that each player would play five, eight-hour shifts and then have a four-hour break. The idea was that you grabbed some sleep and came back refreshed for your next shift. Well, that was the plan. At 3 a.m. the morning of Sept. 17 there were not very many refreshed looking players.

By 3:30 a.m. Sept. 18, 34 hours into the attempt, the wheels on the bus were starting to fall off. Players were playing too hard and a number of injuries had occurred. At a game break we called a meeting and agreed that we had to slow things down or we were going to lose players.

That was a turning point. At 5:30 a.m. Sept. 19 a huge cheer went up as the old record was beaten and one hour later the 61 hour mark had been reached. There were a lot of tears and hugs and people who hadn’t known each other a week ago had undertaken a challenge that would bond them for life.

© 2011 Martin Parnell

mjparnell@shaw.ca

www.marathonquest250.com

Martin Parnell playing netball

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