The first time Grace tried basketball was in the summer term of year 8 when a charity called Greenhouse Sports arrived at her school in Croydon and their coach started running basketball during PE.
Grace was sporty but, other than netball, girls’ sport at school was patchy and inconsistent. “I found netball very constricting,” she says. “As soon as you touch somebody, it’s a foul. But the Greenhouse coach started doing dribbling and shooting drills and what I loved most was the physical contact. Instead of feeling restricted, I felt liberated. It is one of the happiest memories of my childhood.”
