The Sunday News
ZIMBABWE’s national netball team recently crashed out of the African Championship qualifiers held in Botswana, and in the process failed to secure a place in the 2015 World Cup. After that forgettable trip to Botswana, focus will be on the Under-20 side to atone for that disappointment and lay a foundation for future success at the Region Five Games.
Netball is a sport that has found popularity among a lot of young school girls and has remained one of the most played sporting discipline at school level.
This has inevitably led to the creation of regional leagues and a national Netball Super League to accommodate players at the highest level and to ensure there is increased activity within the sport, mainly played by women.
Netball has its roots in North America with the sport having been developed from basketball.
In 1891, a 30-year-old Canadian, James Naismith, moved to Springfield, Massachusetts in the USA. He had invented the men’s basketball game in 1890 and was asked to develop a women’s version of the basketball game by the Boston Young Men’s Christian Association and this led to the beginning of netball.
Women liked the game but they found that the long passes were difficult to execute in the game due to their limited strength.
So, the women decided to adapt the game to suit their circumstances. They divided the court into thirds and introduced a rule that the ball must be caught or touched at least once in each third. No one was allowed to run with the ball and they established restricted playing areas for each position. They got rid of the backboard found in basketball and modified the goal ring to suit the smaller sized soccer ball.
Variations of women’s basketball arose across the United States and in England. At a physical training college in England, the rules of women’s basketball were modified over several years to form an entirely new sport: “netball”. The first codified rules of netball were published at the start of the 20th century, and from there the new sport spread throughout the British Empire.
From the beginning, netball was widely accepted as a sport suitable for women. Domestic netball competitions arose in several countries during the first half of the 20th century. Starting from the 1920s, national associations were formed to organise the sport in netball-playing nations. International matches were played sporadically in the early 20th century, but were hampered by varying rules in different countries.
By 1960, the rules of netball were standardised internationally. An international governing body was formed to oversee the sport globally, now called the International Netball Federation (INF). The second half of the 20th century saw international competition expand, with the sport’s premier international competition, the World Netball Championships, starting in 1963.
Netball has also been contested at the Commonwealth Games since 1998.
Today, netball is a popular sport and is reportedly played by over 20 million people worldwide. It remains primarily a women’s sport, although male participation is increasing in some countries. Netball is still largely an amateur sport, despite some countries having high local-level participation.
Further developments to the sport are being trialed, including a shortened version of the game played in a World Series format; netball is also being advocated for possible inclusion in the Olympic Games.
Published rules for women’s basketball first appeared in 1895, written by Clara Gregory Baer, who was working as a physical education instructor at Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans during the 1890s.
From the start, netball was developed as a women’s sport: existing outside the sphere of male-dominated sports, netball did not encounter the initial social opposition that faced women in other sports in the early 20th century. Women’s participation in netball in the early 20th century was widely accepted, as the sport avoided physical contact and did not involve male participation. The sport spread substantially through the school systems of many netball-playing countries.
Zimbabwe has a vibrant netball national league that has 24 teams and it is expected that young players within these clubs will feature for the Under-20 team while school-going players will feature for the team at the Games.
Teams such as Nehanda Nyasikana, Hwange Colliery, Zimpost, ZDF Queens, Glow Petroleum, Khami Queens, Airforce, Black Rhinos and Mutare Poly are playing in the national league and are likely to have players within their ranks who can ensure Zimbabwe collects the gold medal at the Region Five Games that will run from 5 to 14 December.
