During the Rainbow Laces campaign activation, the couple speak about the challenges of being 9,000 miles away from each other for much of the year, how they both coped, and how women's sport is leading the way in terms of inclusivity
Thursday 10 December 2020 13:42, UK
"You're always judged in netball for what happens on court, as a coach and as a player, everything else doesn't matter."
Sara Bayman knows the sport of netball inside out and back to front, as does her fiancée Stacey Francis.
Between them, they have made 150 appearances for their country and have both experienced multiple Netball World Cups and Commonwealth Games competitions.
After a successful playing career, Bayman has now stepped into leadership and coaching at Loughborough Lightning. Meanwhile, Francis continues to ply her trade as an athlete in Australia's Suncorp Super Netball and with the Vitality Roses.
As a result of their careers now moving in slightly different directions, Bayman and Francis find themselves spending periods of time 9,000 miles away, with Francis in Perth and Bayman in the Midlands.
Despite being used to having a long-distance relationship, this year it's safe to say that the global pandemic has made the distance feel twice as long. On top of that, uncertainties regarding the Suncorp Super Netball and Vitality Netball Superleague seasons added a new layer of complexity.
"I was crazy stressed, but you were really calm," Francis says with a smile to Bayman, speaking to Hannah Wilkes on Sky Sports News.
"I had to choose whether I stayed in Australia or came back to England. I was really confused and conflicted as to what I should do.
"My sister came to Perth from Sydney so that I could try and take care of her, but I was also really mindful that Sara was left in England on her own (due to her work). Initially, she didn't want to go and be with her parents and put them at risk and I just felt that there wasn't a good choice to make. I was crazy stressed!"
Suncorp Super Netball is a professional league in Australia and like all elite sport, they had to go through various discussions with the health authorities and government in Australia to see if their season could take place.
If Francis returned to England while those conversations were ongoing, it wasn't certain that she would be allowed to re-enter the country and return to her job.
"We were both waiting on leagues to make decisions and players in both leagues found it really difficult being in limbo," says Bayman.
"As a coach, it was also really hard because you were trying to keep people motivated and answer questions, if you can. We'd compare notes on where we were both up to."
On March 23, it was announced that the 2020 Suncorp Super Netball season had been postponed. However, it wasn't until May 31 that a new scheduled start date was announced. That date was August 1, with a 60-match season planned and a Grand Final poised to take place on October 18.
For Francis, structure was the name of the game when it came to dealing with time apart from Bayman and also the pandemic as a whole.
"Thankfully, before going back to Australia at the end of January, I'd had a really clear goal in mind as to what I wanted to achieve," she said.
"Even though there was so much up in the air, I knew what it was that I wanted to do, the behaviours I wanted to show, and the type of person that I wanted to be within my environment. Then, it became about making sure that I could do that.
"Hopefully, I attacked it with the most positive mindset possible," she added. "It was a difficult time. Usually, you just see the cool exercises in the gym, the matches or the funny blog posts, but there's lots of highs and lows in between."
Bayman, after isolating and then moving back in with her parents, went down the route of immersing herself in her dissertation for a Masters degree.
I’m naturally quite laid back and I’ve learnt to be quite pragmatic about things and just accept what’s in front of me. However, that has been tested to the limit over the last six or nine months.
"I almost threw myself into things so hard that I didn't have too much time to think. That was my way of doing it, then when was Masters was done at the end of September, we [Lightning] were back in training," she said.
"I mean, I would never recommend doing a dissertation to distract yourself because it was awful, but it meant that I was so busy and didn't have the time to sit around and miss Stacey loads. I just tried to stay present, keep busy, and be as productive as I could."
In December 2018, Bayman and Francis shared on social media that they had just become engaged, with Bayman popping the question at Lake Louise in Banff National Park, Canada. Of course, both remember it well and are appreciative of the positive reception their announcement received.
"For a long period of time when we were dating, nobody really knew," Francis said. "I guess, probably the first public introduction of us as a couple, was us announcing that we were getting married! It went from nothing to everything!
"It has been lovely. I have realised how important it is that people get to see and experience the diversity of relationships and couples.
"Over the last few years, especially being in Australia, I've seen how much positive feedback people give us for just being so authentic and open.
"It came as a bit of a surprise to me that we had so many people looking on and being really appreciative that we were happy to share our relationship with the world."
You’re always judged in netball for what happens on court, as a coach and as a player, everything else doesn’t matter.
"Netball has always been an inclusive sport," Bayman added.
"All of the different campaigns, Rainbow Laces, Black Lives Matter, I don't think that you can think about them individually. I think it's a mindset of a sport that it's going to be open to everyone and that people can come and be part of it.
"I love that about netball and what we've seen over the last few years especially, is that netball around the world has looked like it has become more inclusive, especially the big three nations of Australia, England and New Zealand.
"In those nations, you've had people talking about their relationships more openly, putting things on social media and having really positive responses.
"That's a massive step forward for sport generally and women's sport is leading the way for men's sport on this kind of issue."
Sky Sports is a member of TeamPride which supports Stonewall's Rainbow Laces campaign. If you'd like to help inspire others in sport by sharing your own story of being LGBT+ or an ally, please contact us here.
