SINGAPORE – Liew Hin Joon’s love affair with netball began unexpectedly nearly 50 years ago.

After voicing his unhappiness with the umpiring standards at a community competition in 1976, Liew was challenged to try his hand at officiating and he did, kick-starting a decades-long journey in the sport.

He got into coaching two years later, starting with companies before taking charge of schools.

Affectionately known as “Uncle Liew”, he is a familiar face in the local netball community, having been a competition manager and volunteer at many tournaments, including the 2011 World Netball Championships in Singapore.

Even now, at 75 and battling cancer, Liew remains involved in the netball scene.

While after stopping umpiring when diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer in 2018, his love for the sport sees him coaching NorthLight School and Netball Singapore’s Net4all programme for beginners.

And Liew, who undergoes chemotherapy every fortnight to curb the spread of the disease, plans to keep going.

He said: “Until I feel like I cannot, then I will stop.”

His role at NorthLight – a specialised school for students who are less academically inclined – is one that he finds particularly meaningful.

He was approached to take charge of the programme in 2016, when it was set up.

In the beginning, the co-curricular activity (CCA), which is supported by Deloitte and Netball Singapore, had only five or six student-athletes, who transferred from the school’s basketball team after it was disbanded.

But a three-month stint stretched to five years for Liew, before personal commitments forced him to leave in 2021.

“You need to have patience and be encouraging, you cannot scold them. You need to encourage them,” he said.

“Even sometimes when they do something wrong, I won’t scold them in front of everybody.

“I’ll pull them to one side and talk to them. When you have mutual respect, they treat you as someone equal.”

After his departure, NorthLight found it difficult to find a replacement as it is not many coaches’ first choice as they prefer to work with better performing schools.

National coach Annette Bishop stepped in until Liew returned in July 2023, much to the delight of the staff and student-athletes.

NorthLight’s teacher-in-charge of netball Shazawani Begum is grateful for Liew’s dedication, pointing out that there were times when he came to training right after his chemotherapy sessions.

She said: “Netball drives him, it’s keeping him going and it’s not every day that you see a coach like that.

“For NorthLight particularly, you need to have a coach like that, someone with a heart.”

NorthLight are so touched by his dedication that it tries to make training sessions more comfortable for him, such as by ensuring he has a chair to sit on.

Apart from chemotherapy, Liew is “still very positive like nothing’s wrong” and his family is supportive of his netball endeavours.

He added: “You need to have someone to take care of them (at NorthLight) and the teachers and students were so nice to me, so I feel like I had to take care of them.”

Under Liew’s watch and with the support of their partners, who provide resources such as coaches and equipment to keep the CCA going, NorthLight’s netball programme has grown.

In 2019, they competed in the South Zone competition at the National School Games, though there were times they had to tap on student-athletes from other CCAs to form a team.

From an initial batch of five to six players, there are now 36 student-athletes who attend the CCA regularly and they notched their first win at the Pesta Sukan 2023.

Cindy Koh, the CCA’s second-in-charge, said: “For coach Annette and coach Liew, the ingredient for their rapport with the students is the fact that their love for the sport overrides any judgment they might have with the girls.

“The girls come in with the enthusiasm to learn and their (Bishop and Liew’s) enthusiasm rubs off on the girls as well.”

Defender Mas Ernysha Mohd Rozi, who joined netball in her third year, said it has helped her build mental resilience.

“Even though he’s (Liew) old and has some health problems, he will still come down to support us in games,” added the 15-year-old.

“No matter how much we lose the match by, he won’t scold us and he’ll encourage us to keep training. That’s how sweet he is.”