Nicola McIntyre - Club Chair and Head Coach (L2)

I became a part of Infernos in 2009 when my daughter was 9.  During that time, the club consisted of a small committee and enough for two teams, entering three or four local Junior Tournaments in the year 5/ 6 age category.  I only watched for one training session before I threw myself in to helping the coaching sessions then I soon became involved from the committee side. 
I took on the role as fundraiser to begin with and raised over £10,000 through general fundraising and an England Lottery grant.   In addition to this, I organised several Tournaments a year earning the club some funds to be able to grow and become financially independent.

In 2011 I went through my coaching badges and became a qualified coach and also became the Chairperson of the Club.  I coached and was involved in every age group of the club from 2011 to 2019 and I loved every minute of watching girls develop into netball superstars.  The netball took up quite a lot of my personal time so, when my daughter reached 17 in September 2019, I temporarily stopped coaching to focus on my studies, new job, family and other personal goals.   I'm back coaching again and loving working with our early years group plus the Year 4 team too.  
 
Now in 2022, it makes me so proud to see the teams’ updates of wins, losses and lessons among all the teams from U8 through to U16's.   We currently play approximately 1100 matches and enter up to six tournaments a year including taking squads away for a whole weekend.  I still the remain the Chairperson, and I will continue to push to club to raise its standards in terms of achieving bronze and eventually gold accreditation from England Netball.

 Rachel Critchley – Y6 & Y9 Head Coach (L2)

I have always taken part in physical activity from a young age.  I represented England in fell running when I was 17 years old, I swam and played hockey for my county and played netball at club level. 
I then became a secondary PE teacher and taught for 17 years, during that time I was Head of PE for 15 years and then ran a Performing Arts Faculty for 5 years. 

Whilst teaching I gained many sporting qualifications such as Netball coaching Level 1, Hockey Level 1 and umpiring for both sports.  I am a qualified swimming teacher and I also held the National Pool Qualification for 25 years plus the Trampoline Teaching Award. 

Since leaving teaching in August 2016, my husband and I have bought and renovated a children’s Nursery in Bolton which is going from strength to strength.  I am currently designated Safeguarding Officer for my Nursery and hold Level 3 in Safeguarding and the Paediatric First Aid certificate.  
Vicky Hetherington – Early Years, Y7 & Adult Head Coach (L2)

I have always had a passion for all sport and specifically netball!  During my school and college years I played netball for my school, club and county captaining all of the teams at one particular point.  I continued to play throughout University until injury put a stop to my netball career for a number of years.  I then concentrated on swimming specifically open water swimming to challenge myself and to try and keep fit.
I returned to netball with Infernos when my daughter joined as a member about 4 years ago.  I have since have been involved with the Inferno Team as a Committee member and then as Player/Coach for our adults for the last 18 months.  I have recently qualified as a Level 2 coach and taken the Head Coach role for the Year 7 group, I also assist Nicola with the early years squad too.  I sometimes feel that I think about netball 24/7 but, this is something I love and enjoy and I really do think that exercise is such an important part of every day life!  Eat, sleep, netball, repeat!

I love to see all of our players grow and develop, the progress some of our younger girls make in a short space of time is exceptional.  Their energy and enthusiasm week after week makes it so rewarding being part of their journey.  Winning or losing I absolutely love watching them play their matches and then taking back what we have learnt and need to work on in training.  I equally love playing games myself and can honestly recommend getting back to netball if you have had a break for a number of years.  It is such a brilliant workout!

Darcey Parr – Y10 & Y11 Head Coach (L2)

I’ve always had a love for netball, throughout high school and college I took great pride in competing at county and national level.  I captained my high school team for 5 years and won many awards for outstanding netball at sports presentations.
I carried on playing netball in college for Newman Academy first team where I found my feet as a defender.  The team went on to National and British college tournaments where I was awarded coaches player at the end of my final year.

I am a very enthusiastic, confident person who works extremely hard on creating a positive training environment for myself, my team mates and other players. I find adding variety to training helps improve focus as well as stimulating the players to help improve their performance. My expertise is in fitness, is what I feel is one of the most important aspects of netball.

I make it fun enjoyable and specific to netball to keep the girls motivated.  Netball is all about the team, working together, supporting each other and finding success together, this is the foundation of the game and what I love most about it.
I’m a bubbly, kind, caring person who wants to see everyone do well and progress.

Ian Jones - Y8 Head Coach (L2)

I am very pleased to be able to coach the Infernos Y7 sqaud.  Netball might not seem the obvious choice for a 50 something year old business man to be coaching but, as a father of 3 daughters aged 10, 14 and 19, who have all shown great sporting prowess, I have a personal interest and belief in the importance of sport in our children’s lives. 
In these days of all-encompassing social media platforms and technology, partaking in a physical sport and, even more especially, a competitive team sport is, I believe, integral to our children´s health and physical and mental welfare.

My aim is to help motivate and inspire our girls to achieve the very best they can, having fun at the same time, and to engender in them a team spirit which I hope will carry them through to adulthood, well after they have flown the nest.  A keen sportsman all my life, (unfortunately my football and cricket days are now behind me but I am still an active golfer) I hope to help them enjoy success, learn from defeat and use both to improve their skills in a sportsmanlike manner.  

These are the tenets by which I have built a successful business – motivating and inspiring my work force to be the best in their field.  I qualified as a Level 2 Netball coach in November 2019.    

Julie Strange - Y6 Assistant Coach (L1)

I started my coaching journey with the Primary age teams working alongside Rachel.  I have always been a keen sportswoman and very competitive.  I have done multiple different sports, I had a black belt in Thai boxing and used to compete at competitions.  I played netball at high school and college and always enjoyed it and I got back into netball when my daughters started playing for Chorley Infernos.  Daisy plays for Thunderbolts and Beau plays for the Shooters Team
I currently team manager for the Shooters team and I have worked with both of them since the beginning of their journey at the start of 2019.  I have also helped to coach and develop a number of our other teams through their Infernos journey.   I particularly enjoy getting involved in the training sessions and teaching the girls new drills.  Working with the Inferno Team has really helped me to develop my skills.  
 
My favourite part of the coaching journey is working with the younger girls when they first come to training.  With support they develop skills and a love for the game and it is a pleasure to see them grow in confidence from their first matches to the amazing players that we are producing at Chorley Infernos!