Epping Netball Club have won promotion to the Harlow Netball League First Division for the first time in 20 years after switching their focus to youth.

The club are going places away from the court too, having recently re-located to new premises at St John's School in Epping.

"It's a young team that we've been bringing on the for the last four or five years. We decided as a club that we had too many oldies, so we need to bring some younger players to the club," explained chairwoman Lisa Matthews.

"We moved to the new sports hall because we wanted to push on as a club and encourage as many young girls into the club. We had a little a little core group of six or seven girls who are now in their mid-20s, but we want to constantly encourage young girls to join us."

"We moved to the school so that we could get a longer slot to train and now we're looking to get girls into the club," continued Matthews.

Encouraging new, younger players to join the club is at the forefront of everything Epping are doing at present, with a free netball workshop being hosted by the club during the May half-term, the aim again being to entice new members to the club.

Skills, drills and matchplay will be on offer at the workshop, which will be held at Epping St. Johns School

The club recently applied for a Grange Farm Grant, which has allowed them to develop a club website for the first time.

"We successfully applied for a grant which has made a massive difference. We've been a small club for a long time, we've had a three teams running and not made an money, we've just been paying our fees; we didn't have the money to run a website or anything like that."

Anyone wishing to confirm a place at the netball work shop should ring Lisa Matthew on 07702 440796 or email Lisabrookmeadow@aol.com. The final date to confirm attendance is May 14.