Ivy Topping – intrepid, understanding and insightful

Ian Snook

Nothing brings a bigger smile to Ivy Topping’s face than the memory of forming the Waitara based Tysons Netball Club.

The Waitara High School team which Ivy coached had just won the Taranaki 1st grade Satellite Competition and were the first high school to be promoted in to the Taranaki wide premier competition. This was a huge achievement and it was Ivy, knowing the fluctuations of abilities year by year in a school team, who decided it would be a good idea to strengthen the side by including adults in the playing lineup.

She approached Betty and Tony McGreal at Tysons Garage for some sponsorship and the rest is history. What started as an even split of school players and young adults 33 years ago has turned into one of the most successful clubs in Taranaki, in recent years running eight teams and under coach Che Tamati winning their eighth consecutive championship in 2022.

Prior to Che there were five championships under Ivy’s tutelage but it is almost as if Ivy gets more satisfaction of others doing well rather than herself, especially as Che was guided along the way as her assistant coach for a couple of years before handing over the reigns.

Today Betty, Ivy and Che are all Life Members of Tysons.

Although now a true blue Waitara girl of over 50 years the story starts in Petts Wood, England, where Ivy was the youngest of seven children. There was a bit of sport played at Crofton Lane Primary School, but more often it was running off and hiding in the old air raid shelters – just to be naughty really. The youngest of seven thought she could do what she liked.

At Bromley County Grammar School for Girls, where they walked in straight lines, kept to the left and didn’t talk, her love of netball began. She progressed through the Under 14’s and Under 16’s in to the school ‘A’ team, whilst at the same time having her first taste of coaching where one of the older teachers gave her the opportunity to coach the juniors at netball and rounders. Even then she felt comfortable in the coaching role.

It was off to Lady Mabel College of Physical Education for Girls on leaving school, apparently nicknamed ‘The Nunnery of the North’, where all the girls lived on the premises at the Earl of Wentworth’s House, the largest private house in the UK. (This is worth a google – Ian)

There were three days of interviews, practicals, essays and a medical to be passed before acceptance, with Ivy battling an injury which she had suffered when falling down after tripping in the cattle stop the previous night. No matter, she did well enough to be accepted.

What followed were three years of hard graft with many work days going from 9.00am until 6.30pm. However, this proved to be beneficial as Ivy gained two distinctions in PE Theory and Education at the Sheffield University and after one season in the first year’s netball team there were two seasons representing the top side who played against other PE Colleges and county sides from the likes of Derbyshire and Yorkshire. There was also a period playing cricket but that did not continue.

Teaching practice was also providing the opportunity of more and more coaching, firstly at primary schools and later at secondary schools.

Ivy’s first teaching employment was at Sudbury High School in Suffolk, an all-girls school. Being in the PE Department she coached many sports and activities and she loved every moment of it. There was no netball for adults in Sudbury so she helped set up a local league where she would coach and umpire and do anything else that was necessary.

With no netball to play Ivy took up rowing with the Stour Boat Club, her fondest memory being the winning of the Stour Regatta. There were many regattas attended and as well she got many of the girls at the school interested in in the sport.

In 1969 Ivy made a huge decision – she arrived in NZ on a scheme called ‘Bring out a Briton’ as the New Zealand government recruited for more teachers. Fortunately for Waitara, it was their advert that she spotted in the UK after making her choice to shift to the other side of the world, and a job was secured.

The plane was full of teachers who then spent a night sleeping at Ardmore College before being loaded on to buses the next morning. ‘Get off at Waitara’, the 23 year old was told. Fortunately, at the Princess Street/Clifton Drive intersection, the bus was waved down by the then Principal of Waitara High School, Jim Sharkey, who stepped aboard and called out, “Miss Rapley”, and life in NZ was underway.

The very next day Ivy walked in to town to buy some stamps so that she could write home and she spotted the rowing club. On venturing over she ran in to Peter Lucas, and upon enquiry about when the women rowers trained Ivy was bluntly told that there were no women rowers in Waitara and there never would be. In later years when the women started up Ivy considered it too late to have another crack.

The one thing that did worry her was that netball wasn’t played in NZ and how she was going to get to grips with basketball, a game she had never tried. The staff at Sudbury had even given her a book on ‘Basketball for Beginners’.

She needn’t have worried – Basketball in NZ had not yet had the name change to netball.

The job at WHS initially ran for four years, there was a year off, then there were two years at Manukorihi Intermediate, before heading back to WHS which would go through to 1990. Waitara High School had 14 netball teams at that time and the town in general was bustling with kids playing sport.

From ’69 to 1975 Ivy played in the local club side who would win the championship on three occasions whilst at the same time coaching at WHS. She then gave up the playing to concentrate on coaching where she relished being a part of seeing the girls grow as people and as athletes. She would always coach the ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams as a squad which ensured that there was continuity and progression.

There were over 20 years of coaching at the high school, occasionally taking breaks to coach the lower grade teams if there was a young coach keen to take the first team. In most cases they would be mentored by Ivy. There were plenty of really talented girls who passed through WHS with the likes of Robyn Laurent, Tammy Wallace, Alice Dombroski and Abby Nowell to name but a very small number.

At the same time there were rep teams to coach. The Taranaki Under 16’s had three seasons with Ivy; the Taranaki Under 18’s also had three seasons; Taranaki Premiers team were under her tuition for three seasons and there was a season with the Waikato Senior team.

She was also entrusted with the NZ Development squad players, where 30 girls all trying to make a claim for the Silver Ferns, received coaching over a couple of camps. To top things off Ivy was in charge of the Western Flyers for three seasons, a team made up of the best from Taranaki, Whanganui, Hawkes Bay and Manawatu, who would play against the best from the likes of Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago.

Her favourite memory of all this is with the Taranaki Under 18’s at the national tournament where they went down in a thriller by one point to Auckland in the final.

In 1990 Ivy was appointed to her dream job as one of the Coaching Officers for NZ Netball with the responsibility for all provinces in the lower part of the North Island. She can remember thinking to herself. ‘I can’t believe I’m getting paid for this’.

The role was a mixture of working with coaches and introducing coaching courses. She was amazed at the number of really good people she met in this job, so many of them giving so much of their time, the reward being the enjoyment rather than any financial gain.

There were ten years in this job followed by three years with Sport and Netball Taranaki and then a further seven years after she was approached by Leigh Gibbs to apply to be part of Coachforce with NZ Netball.

This organization had four coaches spread across the country with the focus being on coach development. Ivy’s region was from Waikato south in the North Island where there would be plenty of regional courses but they would also come together to run national courses.

These courses were often run around Silver Fern games where the participants would come in on a Friday evening and leave late on Sunday, whilst taking in the international game and having to dissect it as one of their tasks.

During her stints with Netball NZ there was plenty going on. She wrote or rewrote seven books – ‘Defending’, which she would rewrite under ‘On Defence’ in her second term in the job; ‘Game Plans’; ‘Team Building’ which is a resource used in schools; and she rewrote ‘On Attack’. As well there was ‘My Team and Me’ and ‘My Little Team and Me’ designed for secondary school pupils who were coaching lower high school or younger teams.

There were also coaching courses run in Samoa two times, the Solomon Islands and Rarotonga.

And of course going to the Netball World Cups is compulsory – when you live your life for netball you must see the best. Since 1991 she has travelled to Birmingham, Sydney twice, Jamaica, Singapore, Auckland and Liverpool. Next year it will be Cape Town. Most of these have included her great mate Lois Muir, one of NZ’s very best coaches ever, and it all started when daughter Carron was a goal shoot for the Silver Ferns in the period 1991 through to ’95.

The family story is a tale in itself. Husband Garry, a tough as teak Taranaki rugby rep, and Ivy, adopted their four children Carron, David, Jayne and Anita from the Isle of Man in the UK. Ivy’s brother had passed away shortly after his wife had died and there were four children aged 13, 11, 9 and 6 left without parents. On discussing with her sister what would happen with the children, Ivy leans out the window and calls to Garry who is mowing the lawns, “Hey, are you keen to adopt the kids?”, to which Garry replies “Yep”, and it was signed and sealed.

A great story and a great family.

Most recently there has been the coaching of granddaughter Ava’s year seven team, granddaughter Jess’s year six team and this year the Tysons 5th grade side. The passion hasn’t died and I’m sure there is a lot still to be done.

To add to Tysons Life Membership there has been a Life Membership of Taranaki Netball and a Service Award for Netball New Zealand.

Congratulations Ivy. We are very lucky you took up the government offer!

Ian Snook is a Sports News Taranaki contributor. He is a former Taranaki and Central Districts cricketer, played rugby for Taranaki and coached to a high level in nine different countries.