Goal is to umpire at netball worlds | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

As the youngest in a family of 15 children, Amanda Nottingham might be expected to be a competitive person.

It's no doubt a factor in her rapid rise to become one of New Zealand's leading netball umpires.

Her big ambition is to umpire at the world championships this year, and assignments to the international tri series in England this month and the Australia-Jamaica series in July look further steps towards that.

The 37-year-old company operations manager now has two years of international appointments behind her after her debut in the Australia-England test in Melbourne in February 2005, and is highly respected by National Bank Cup players for her control and communication.

Like Richie McCaw from the Hakataramea, Nottingham shows coming from remote backblocks is no drawback to reaching the top. But while a country upbringing might be an advantage for a rugby player, it's more unexpected in a netball personality.

Nottingham's family farmed Okarahia Downs in the Hundalee, and her 14 older siblings included nine sisters ? although they never formed a netball team.

Their father encouraged lots of interests outside their education. For most that meant sport, and her brothers Kevin and Terry Morgan both played rugby for Marlborough.

Nottingham played netball through school at Oaro and Marian College and for Marist-Albion at varsity, where she got an MSc majoring in organic chemistry.

When she was 18 her Marist coach volunteered her as a club umpire, and she both played and umpired in her student days. She decided to concentrate on umpiring when she saw the opportunities it offered and because it fitted in with study and work.

Nottingham made the national umpire squad in 1999, and after being dropped from National Bank Cup in 2003 ("the best thing that ever happened") she's now in her fourth straight season in the cup.

While it's got more and more professional, she doesn't think the cup is harder for umpires now.

"But the competition has definitely got tighter, and the expectations on umpires are that we will bring a high level of professionalism and consistency to the court."

At elite level, umpires had to have fitness comparable with the players, she said.

Nottingham's CV takes in the National Bank Cup final last year, the 2005 world youth championships in Florida, the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the 2005 Australia-South Africa series, the 2005 South Africa-England series, and the 2006 Fiji-South Africa series. She also furthered her experience with two matches in the English Superleague at the end of last year.

While she's become one of the sports top officials, Nottingham is glad to hide her whistle once a year ? and get on court in a bib for the masters competition.