Greenway: “The players and fans were just incredible”

BBC Radio’s Andy Lamb caught up with former Director of Netball Tamsin Greenway last week in her final interview for Surrey Storm.

AL: Tamsin – it’s a new franchise and a new challenge..
TG: Yes, I’m really really excited. I’ve had an incredible time at Storm for the past 7 seasons and it had to be a good opportunity to make me want to walk away and this one was too good an opportunity to turn down. The very fact building with the Wasps brand is fantastic, playing at the Ricoh Arena week-in-week-out as our home venue is incredible it’s every players dream and for me as a midlands girl to come home and help push netball on in that area is such a good challenge and I can’t wait to get started.

AL: In a way the time was right, do you think you’ve achieved all you could’ve with Storm?
TG: I don’t think the time is ever right. Maybe we’ve got to a point where I don’t know what else I’m trying to do at Storm. It’s been incredible I can’t fault what we’ve achieved there, the people behind the scenes, the players, the fans and everything we’ve done. Launching Netball London Live at the Copper Box Arena was a challenge and people thought we were mad when we wanted to do that. Going to Storm when it first started and creating that from scratch, taking the role as player/coach. We worked out it was 5 Grand Finals in 7 seasons and when you look at any greater achievements it was only winning that was eluding us and we’ve done that back-to-back now in 2015 and 2016 as a player and as a coach. So I look at it with so many great memories. This is the next step for me. This is the next challenge.

AL: You can take loads from those 7 years. The debut season line up, title wins, friends you’ve made, this year’s semi-final, your testimonial…… need I go on?
TG: Exactly and when you start to break it down like that I blink. This year in particular the players and the fans were just incredible, this season was really special. Sometimes you look at it and think I’m not sure I can top that from that group. The timing is definitely right, It’s been a great part of my life being at Storm but I’m really excited about this next part because this is about the next bit where we push netball forward and anyone that knows me knows is something I’ve always been passionate about.

AL: Twitters been supportive – Storm girls are a special bunch.
TG: They are a special bunch and I had given them the heads up a couple of weeks ago when I had made the decision to leave and they were fully supportive in what I had chosen to do. Happy that I had chosen to speak to them first and that bunch, no matter what the players decide to do next year. where they play, what they do, whether they continue to play they are an incredible team that’s something we wanted to build and something I want to build at Wasps now building the same thing. Over the 7 years (at Storm) we’ve also started to create a real environment for home grown talent and that’s something I want to build on in the Midlands.