Katie Noonan has an impressive netball CV.

The 48-year-old is head coach of Hucclecote’s talent and pathway academy, and last season guided the club’s under 14s to the national finals, the first time for a number of years.

She’s also a former coach of the club’s flagship team who play in England Netball’s Premier League 1 – a position she held for eight years – and she was a player for the club’s regional teams for a good number of years.

Throw in the fact that she is also director of netball at Dean Close School in Cheltenham and it’s clear that the sport is a very big part of her life.

Born in Cirencester, she started playing netball at the age of nine or 10 when she was a pupil at Powell’s Primary School.

“I was the kid at school who was into all sports,” said the former Deer Park School pupil. “I did hockey, netball, athletics, I’d play anything,” she said.

She also played quite a lot of basketball for Gloster Jets and coaches the under-14B rugby players at Dean Close but added: “Netball was always my number one pick.”

Initially, she played her club netball for Cheltenham-based team United in the Gloucestershire Netball League before linking up with Hucclecote, who these days are one of the bigger clubs in the country.

“I was poached by Sue Wainwright and Gilly Salter,” said Noonan with a laugh. “United were very supportive of me moving.”

Wainwright and Salter have been two of the driving forces behind the rise of Hucclecote Netball Club, who last year celebrated their 50^th anniversary.

Noonan, a married mum-of-two, initially coached the club’s Regional League 2, a team she also played for, and she continued to play for them when she started coaching the club’s Regional League 1 side.

And she must have been doing something right because Wainwright was soon asking her to take charge of their Premier League side.

Initially, she was reluctant to take on the role, but once in the position she flourished. The club’s highest finish when she was in charge was fourth and she clearly left the team in a good place at the of the 2023/24 campaign because last season they finished second under Sam Wisbey.

“Sam is a fantastic coach,” said Noonan. “She’s such an experienced player. She played for Severn Stars, Team Bath and England, she’s got so much knowledge.”

Wisbey (née Cook) played for Noonan when she was in charge and Noonan remembers getting a run-out on court in a Premier League game, albeit briefly, a few years ago.

“I ran on for 30 seconds to cover an injury,” she said. “I touched the ball two or three times and then got off as quickly as I could.

“I was never quite at that level. I’m 5ft 9in, I wish I was 6ft.”

She was initially a centre before dropping back to goal defence and goalkeeper but says she’s a better coach than she was a player.

“I loved playing and I still play occasionally,” she said. “I recently went down to Exeter with a Gloucestershire Vets team and we came second in the tournament.

“I played/coached but I couldn’t walk for two days afterwards!”

She enjoyed it, nonetheless, and she certainly enjoyed taking the under-14s to the national finals in Sheffield earlier this year.

She took over as coach midway through the season and she was aware just how much potential they had because she’d been involved with them as head coach of the talent and pathway academy, something that the club set up at the start of last season.

“When Sue asked me to coach the under-14s, I said, ‘Absolutely’,” she said. “The girls were fantastic, they worked ridiculously hard, they really committed to everything we asked them to do.”

And to finish 10th at the nationals was some achievement.

“We went with the target of finishing in the top 10,” continued Noonan. “It was a fantastic experience for the girls, it was a big step up.”

The competition was won by Oldham, a big force in English netball these days, and Noonan added: “It was great for our girls to see what the top one, two, three sides are doing.

“Most of them will be playing for our under-16s this season and the dream is for them to go on and play in the Premier League.”

Having a strong youth system is key for any club’s long-term future and Hucclecote certainly know what they are doing in that respect.

“Our talent pipeline is amazing,” said Noonan. Players like Paige Reed who is now playing at Manchester and Shona O’Dwyer who played for Wales. 

“We can expose players to play at a high level when they’re ready, we can drop them in at regional level and we can drop them in at Prem level.”

It certainly worked for Niamh Kilgallen who is part of the England Futures squad with Noonan saying: “She is in a really great place.”

Noonan, who lives in Winstone, has handed over the under-14 reins to Sarah Adams this season but she will see plenty of the new influx of girls through her role with the academy.

“We push them quite hard,” she said, but Noonan pushes herself quite hard too.

So how long does she want to stay in the role?

“When you get to the end of a season, you think you’re ready for a break,” she said. “But then you have some downtime and when the new season comes round you can’t wait to get started again.”