Former England netball coach Tracey Neville has revealed she had a miscarriage a day after steering the team to their first-ever Commonwealth Games gold medal last year.
Neville, who recently announced she is pregnant, stepped down as England head coach this summer, having led the Roses to their first major title at the April 2018 Commonwealth Games.
“I had a miscarriage and then I went into a three-hour media fest to celebrate what is something that I’d been waiting something like 30 years for,” Neville told BBC Breakfast.
“You think to yourself: ‘This can’t be right.’ You see other ladies who have been through traumatic situations take time off work, but I just wasn’t willing to do that.
“This was my family, this was my commitment. I didn’t want to miss this journey that the Roses were on because, in a way – and it’s awful to say – the Roses were my priority.”
Neville then had a second miscarriage in December 2018, which contributed towards her decision to step down as head coach, she added.
“I looked at taking a sabbatical but I’d be putting huge pressure on myself to get pregnant, and we all know it doesn’t work like that,” she said.
She formally called time on the job after overseeing the Roses third-place finish at the World Cup in July 2019.
Neville announced she is pregnant last week and in the BBC interview, said she wants to help shift conversations about older mothers from “negative to positive”.
“We know the stats. We know that I’m 42 and the risks are high, but it creates a fearful environment,” she said. “If only there was just a bit more positivity around health and wellbeing.”