Bev Harvey, Dame Steel
To celebrate Our Game: A Century of Netball in Aotearoa New Zealand, we're shining a light on some of the people that make netball in Aotearoa New Zealand not just a game, but a community as well.
Blog by Tanya Matthews, the Museum's resident Netball expert and super-fan.
If you have ever watched televised coverage of the Southern Steel playing an ANZ Championship match, or the former Southern Sting netball team in action, it’s highly probable you have seen their biggest fan on your TV screen. Yes, we are talking about that passionate female supporter kitted out in a blue and white wig with pink sparkly masquerade glasses and a pink & blue sparkly pinafore frock with faces of each current Steel player hand sown on and waving a cutout hand painted championship trophy! She’s always there and always picked up by the cameras, but who is this larger-than-life super-fan? Well netball enthusiasts, let us introduce you to Bev Harvey!
Image: Zingari team 1964, Timaru. Bev is in bottom row, second from left.
Based in Invercargill and esteemed in Southland netball circles, Bev proudly supported Southern Sting in the Coca-Cola Cup and National Bank Cup League from its formation in 1998. Many fans wore costumes with fancy hats or sparkly wigs and waved streamers to cheer on their home team and rev-up vocal support if the opposition had snuck ahead. Bev was always there and her colourful character eventually took on the fan persona ‘Dame Steel’. While most fans no longer dress up for stadium matches, Dame Steel has become renowned and, due to being particularly popular with the children, Bev chooses to continue bringing joy through the wearing of her fan costume.
The persona Dame Steel has become so popular that the Brisbane Firebirds wanted to take her back to Australia and claim her as their own! She has been recognised over the years by netball fans in Australia and as far afield as Europe where, while holidaying, she was approached by a stranger and asked if she was the real Dame Steel.
Image: Bev in action at one of the Sting’s early matches.
Bev continued to play the game she loves so much until injury temporarily forced her to hang the sports shoes up for an extended period in her early 40s. It was then she swapped roles from player to superfan. She joined other excited Southlanders at Centennial Hall for the Sting’s first franchise competition match in 1998, viewing the talents of elite players Bernice Mene, Donna Loffhagen and Julie Carter and their highly successful coach, the late Robyn Broughton. Competition matches moved to the purpose-built courts at Stadium Southland in 2000. The Southern Sting team enjoyed enormous success and popularity winning seven national titles in 10 years. The loyal fanbase, including Bev, dressed in team-coloured hats, wigs, masks and clothing, waving streamers or banging thundersticks to further inspire the players. Bev used her sewing abilities and arts and crafts skills to make several different netball supporters outfits over the years but it was when she decided to step up and take on the fan persona Dame Steel that she made the decision just one outfit needed to stay. She does, as indicated, make little changes each season, sewing the faces of new players onto her cheer-leading pinafore gown.
Bev even promoted the great sport of netball in her workplace. A qualified Diversional Therapist, her work involved organising social or physical interactions including creative and fun programmes, events and exercise. She coordinated regional players to visit care facilities and give talks to the residents. On several occasions she even organised limousines to transport Calvary Hospital residents to Southern Steel matches and at one of these the Steel players, in addition to the visiting Australian Firebird’s team, headed outside to physically greet and escort the residents into the stadium for the match.
Image: Recent photo of Bev in her ‘Dame Steel’ outfit.
Several times Bev has considered ‘hanging up’ her Dame Steel outfit for good, but it’s the excitement and involvement of the children at the matches that keeps her going; from the moment she arrives children are greeting her, talking with her, wanting to inspect and touch the costume, to have their photograph taken with Dame Steel. Bev takes great joy in knowing that while all of this is happening, the children are not playing on their mobile phones but rather actively engaging in a healthy sport and the match surroundings, and learning about competitive play, and these are the moments that inspire her to keep appearances up as Dame Steel.
Even a recent battle with cancer has not stopped Bev’s love and involvement in the sport of netball. Despite being in her 70s, she is back playing ‘walking netball’ at the Invercargill Netball Centre and continuing to inspire all of us with her enormous enthusiasm and support. Bev Harvey, aka Dame Steel – a true super-fan and champion of the sport of netball.
Image: Bev (holding ball) and her team mates at Walking Netball, Invercargill Netball Centre.