CLUB HISTORY
Shore Rovers Netball Club is the oldest club on the North Shore originally playing under the name of “El-Jay” for 1 season before changing its name to Shore Rovers Netball Club. At that time (1952) there was no North Harbour competition, the girls had to cross the bridge to play in Auckland. When netball competition started on the Shore, the Shore Rovers team moved from Auckland to h
elp establish the competition, this was in 1953. The Club started with just one team and has grown to the current day with on average 14 teams per season, making it the oldest and one of the largest Clubs on the shore. A member of that original team, Fay Chapman, still comes down to the courts on a Saturday to watch our teams play. The name El-Jay came because the founding ladies worked at El-Jay Foundation which was a fashion factory in Milford circa 1591/1952. When the boss found the girls playing basketball at lunchtime he had a chat to them about using some leftover material to make some uniforms... thats where the green and yellow came from. They changed the name to Shore Rovers the following year when they joined the brand new centre at North Harbour in 1953, this was due to people thinking they had to work at El-Jay to be able to play for them. Gus Fisher (the owner of El-Jay) was the New Zealand licensee for Christian Dior, which gave him the exclusive rights to manufacture and sell Christian Dior originals and Christian Dior prêt-à-porter in the New Zealand market. Find out more about that here Click here …/gus-fisher-el-jay/
With the advent of the National Club Competition in the 80’s, only the top Club team in a region was able to challenge for a place in the National League. Shore Rovers sat in the shadow of Carmel for a number of years until the Club finally worked its way to the top and challenged and beat Carmel for its place in the league in 1989. In 1994 the Club was ranked 3rd and gained a very high profile within the media, both television and newsprint. In the period 1994 – 1995, Shore Rovers consistently achieved a top four placing and came 2nd in both 1996 & 1997. In 1998, the new Regional Franchise competition was formed. This tipped out all top players from Club teams throughout NZ to go into the Regional Franchised Teams. This effectively wiped out Shore Rovers Team 1 as Rovers were at that time the top team in NNH. From 1998 - 2003 the top Shore Rovers team was a Social Team of ex-Rep players who decided to step away from Regional competition and play only at Club level. This team has seen the Club proud by consistently being in the top three teams at Netball North Harbour. The Shore Rovers Team Red finally retired in 2006. Over the years we've had some great Premier coaches; Margaret Burgess, Yvonne Willering, Bella Panoho, Helene Wilson (Mystics coach 2017) and Ripeka Albert (Beko assistant coach 2017). Shore Rovers 1 won the Premier 1 competition in 2015 and 2013, after spending a few years getting back to the top and our 2nd team have spent the past few years in and out of premier 1. You can see more about our grade placings under the "club awards and recognition' page. The Club has been under the guidance of President, Kelly Cameron for the past 8 years. Kelly received her 20 year loyalty badge in 2016 and has held numerous roles such as Secretary, VP and Coaching Coordinator. The club is a very well run unit due to it's great committee and long service of members like Vice President Renee Fougere (10 yrs loyal) and Jan Nicholson (Life Member, 25 years loyal), Lynne Rosandich (Life Member, 18 yrs loyal) and current Secretary Rachel Stiff (10 yrs loyal).
