Our history
Loughborough Lightning was one of the founding teams of the Netball Super League in 2005, owned and operated by Loughborough University. As part of Loughborough University’s sports development programme, the team benefitted from high-quality coaching, access to talented athletes, and an abundance of performance focused facilities.
At the time, Loughborough University was a training centre for England Netball and were fortunate to have stars including Olivia Murphy, Karen Atkinson and Alex Wood based locally. The University was able to attract talented athletes and had performance facilities to support a world-class training programme which has continued to evolve over the years.
Lightning was suggested as a name to compliment the team’s home of Loughborough, aiming to reflect the brand of play the squad wanted to achieve; fast-paced, agile and high energy – and Loughborough Lightning was born.
Having a franchise was a huge step forward for netball within East Midlands. The relationship between the region and the franchise was paramount in the success of the franchise in the first few years, spearheaded by Andrew Borrie (Franchise Director at the time) and Head Coach Rosie Port.
Loughborough Lightning were known for their dynamic and young squad, with several England stars coming through the ranks including Ama Agbeze, Jade Clarke and Jo Harten. Lightning became one of the more consistent teams in the early years of the Superleague, but the 2017 season was the turning point and the team have continued to be a dominant force in the league, having finished in the top four for the past 7 seasons (excluding the abandoned Covid-19 year).
Since narrowly missing out to Manchester Thunder in the 2020 final, Lightning have gone on to win the Super league in 2023 and 2024.