York netball umpire Sarah Watts has successfully gained her netball ‘A’ umpiring award, the first person in York to do so for 19 years.

She is also the only person to be affiliated to England Netball in North Yorkshire to hold the award.

Watts’ love of netball started as a nine-year-old when she was first introduced to the game at Ralph Butterfield Primary School in Haxby.

As a player at Joseph Rowntree Secondary School, she was a member of both the Under-14 and U16 school teams to reach the National Schools’ netball finals.

But it was at university in Sheffield, training to become a PE teacher, that she began to prefer umpiring to playing.

On her return to York she began climbing the umpiring ladder, passing the ‘C’ award in 2000, the ‘B’ in 2005 and now in 2009 her ‘A’ award.

Watts is currently Head of PE at Millthorpe School and has recently returned from a week end in Gibraltar where she was one of the officiating umpires at the U17 European Championship.