FIRE5 Came to Manchester. The City Got It Immediately.

On 29–30^th August 2026, Belle Vue Sports Village in Manchester hosted FIRE5 . A fast, high-pressure 5-a-side netball format. Prize money on the table. A live DJ. A live rapper. Athletes who showed up not just to play but to perform. And a crowd that understood exactly what they were watching.

It was not a traditional netball tournament. It was never supposed to be.

The two day event concluded with an enthralling final, as Team Suns edged Team Sting to take home the £13,000 top prize, the biggest individual team prize in the history of the format. But the result was only one part of the story.

Even in the gaps between games, the energy did not stop. Kira Rothwell took home an additional £1,000 as Hot Minute winner. Alice McGeachy claimed the Last Blaze prize, another £1,000 for the Suns player. This is what FIRE5 looks like in practice: performance rewarded individually, not just collectively. Athletes with something specific to play for, in every minute of every match.

The athletes were not the only ones that showed that FIRE5 is truly different.  Music and netball belong together, and the live performance of rapper Che3kz proved this, showing what Manchester is truly about. DJ Mystikle Blue, the Birmingham-based DJ who has become the unofficial soundtrack to British netball, from Birmingham 2022 to NSL fixtures to England Netball test series, brought that same energy to Manchester. Host Jzzminaa connected the action on the court with the energy of the crowd, moving between the two, interviewing athletes, pulling the whole experience into one room. 

Belle Vue held. Manchester held. The crowd brought the same energy the format demanded of the players.

“This is more than a tournament. We’re creating a new pathway, different opportunities, and a different way to experience netball” 

Maria Folau played 150 Tests for the Silver Ferns. She won a World Cup gold medal in 2019. And she has built the format she wished existed, inspired by the FIRE5 version of the sport.

Across both days in Manchester, Maria wore a Manchester United shirt.

It was not a random detail. It was a statement of intent; a World Cup winner from the other side of the world choosing to connect with this city specifically, on its own terms, through its own symbols. FIRE5 brought the netball world to Manchester. The event was live-streamed globally. And throughout both days, Folau moved through the space not as a figurehead but as a founder. Present, engaged, watching what she had built come to life. The event she built from the inside. 

What made FIRE5 different from anything netball had done in Manchester before was not the prize money, or the format, or even the quality of the athletes. It was the atmosphere.

Sport and culture running in the same breath. Live music. A live performance. A host who treated the athletes as personalities, not just players. All received by an audience that responded accordingly; loud, engaged, invested in the individuals on court rather than just the score.

Throughout the event, the athletes showed up in every sense. On the court with the urgency the format demands. Off it with the presence that FIRE5 was built to create. The energy was mutual.

Manchester has always understood this. The city that gave the world its musical exports, sport and culture have always been the same conversation. Netball arrived in that conversation on 29–30 August. And Manchester got it immediately.

Manchester was the proof of concept. The netball world was watching. It will not be the last time.