For­mer T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNA) pres­i­dent Martha Archer has died.

Just last Tues­day, fam­i­ly, friends and mem­bers of the net­ball fra­ter­ni­ty, via Face­book, sent birth­day greet­ings to Archer when she turned 68 so the news of her pass­ing ear­li­er Mon­day came as a shock to all.

The TTNA sent out no­tice of the death of the longest-serv­ing net­ball ad­min­is­tra­tor say­ing: "Rest in Pre­fect Peace. It is with a heavy heart that we an­nounce the pass­ing of a net­ball leg­end, past pres­i­dent of the TTNA Inc, ex­ec­u­tive mem­berof the Amer­i­c­as Net­ball, an life long sup­port­er of the sport."

Archer ws the first To­bag­on­ian to be elect­ed pres­i­dent of a Na­tion­al Sport­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, serv­ing as head of the TTNA for 14 years (1991–2003, 2005–2007) and in sev­er­al po­si­tions on both is­lands and in the re­gion.

She was the sec­re­tary/trea­sur­er of To­ba­go Net­ball League (TNL) for 20 years (1978-1998), hold­ing the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent for 10 years (1999–2003, 2007–2013) and was the Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (AF­NA) vice pres­i­dent from 1994-2018. In her fi­nal year of ser­vice to the Amer­i­c­as body, life mem­ber­ship in AF­NA was con­ferred on her in Bar­ba­dos at a World Cup qual­i­fi­er.

AF­NA al­so reached out to the mourn­ing net­ball com­mu­ni­ty on Face­book, say­ing: "Our hearts are sad in the Amer­i­c­as Re­gion to­day. A stal­wart is gone. In the face of ad­ver­si­ty and ill­ness she re­mained strong. She ac­quired in­sti­tu­tion­al knowl­edge of the sport and she took that li­brary with her.

"Martha was made a Life­time Mem­ber of AF­NA in 2018. She served her beloved TTNA with dis­tinc­tion. Martha has donned her wings, fly high with the An­gels and tran­si­tion well. Thank You for the ser­vice! R.I.P. Our sin­cere con­do­lences to Martha’s fam­i­ly and friends."

In 2019, Archer, who has been in­volved in the sport for some 50 years, was award­ed the Hum­ming­bird Medal (Gold) for loy­al and de­vot­ed ser­vice to T&T.

She leaves to mourn daugh­ter Ko­rice Archer-Nan­cis and sib­lings Austrid Archer-Roach­ford, Va­lerie Archer, who is based in the UK, Cheryl Archer-Dar­by-Payne, Char­maine Archer, Lenor Archer, Yolan­der Archer and Sel­wyn Archer; broth­er Joseph Wayne Archer is de­ceased.