General News
3 September, 2021
Champion netballer calls it a day
THE Hampden league’s most decorated netballer knew the time was right to close the curtain on her career.
THE Hampden league’s most decorated netballer knew the time was right to close the curtain on her career.
Camperdown’s Tracey Baker this week announced she is retiring from competitive netball after 32 years playing in the local competition.
The 46 year-old started as a 14 year-old in A grade in 1989 at Camperdown, well before junior ranks were established within the league.
She would go on to play 448 open (also known as A grade) games, with her 449th and final match cancelled due to COVID-19.
Baker, who entered season 2021 expecting to play her final season, said she felt the time was right to hang up her netball dress.
“For a start I thought that (this season) might be it and then through COVID it was just too hard. Too hard to stop and start all the time and we don’t know how long this (pandemic) is going to go on for,” she said.
“At the start of the season I had tight calves and it was just a real struggle to play each week and then COVID would hit and we’d have a week off and I’d thought this would be good but as it went on it was just too hard (on the body).
“I’d had as much of a full season as I could with the girls and that was an aim, to come back (and play with them) after I did my foot in 2017.
“I was able to do that and I played with the girls and thought there was nothing else I wanted to do and the time felt right.”
Baker, who also spent three seasons at Cobden, has been one of the league’s mainstays over the last three decades.
League legends including Port Fairy’s Nicole Dwyer, Koroit’s Stacey O’Sullivan, South Warrnambool’s Leah Kermeen, Camperdown’s Leah Sinnott and others have all played and retired in recent years, but the tough midcourter has stood the test of time.
She has overcome injuries and setbacks, won league (1992 and 2012) and club best and fairests, played reduced time to help develop youth and has even achieved the rare feat of playing top grade netball with her daughters Chelsea and Krystal.
But Baker, who estimates she has played with more than 130 team-mates at Camperdown alone, said the biggest and most cherished aspect she will take away from her netball career is the lifelong friendships she has built.
“You just make so many friendships through sport and those people will be lifelong friends now,” she said.
“Over the 30 years I think I played with 137 different players just at Camperdown in the A grade side.
“That probably doesn’t sound a lot over 30 years but a lot of those people I still keep in touch with.
“I probably cherish playing with Chelsea and Krystal more so now too. They might think of it more later on, but there’s probably not too many people that get to play with their kids.”
Premiership glory has alluded her at Hampden league level however, although not from a lack of trying, with Baker featuring in numerous losing grand finals during her storied career.
Her closest thing to a premiership was a state league win with the Magpies in 2012, a time she described as special.
“That was probably the highlight as far as the premiership side of things, that was pretty special and with a special group of people,” Baker said.
“I wish I had have won a Hampden league grand final for sure, I can say that’s what you play for but it’s not totally what I played for.
“We partied so hard after we lost grand finals, I don’t know what it would have felt like to win one but it would have been nice to say that I had won a grand final.
“We had our chances, there was a couple we should have won but we didn’t and that’s just how it is.”
While the sun is setting on her playing days, Baker is looking forward to her next chapter life brings.
“It is going to be an adjustment but when I did my foot in 2017, it was like oh my god my whole life’s changed because I’ll never play netball again,” she said.
“That’s probably what it feels like now but at the same time it’s exciting to see what the next chapter is.
“I have got ideas and different things I’d like to be involved with at the club, and also to be able to sit back and watch the kids.
“As much as it’s probably a sad feeling, it’s an exciting feeling at the same time.”