Hello again stalkers! Today, I will be telling you guys a story of how netball existed and where was it originated.
It started from the year of 1891 when Dr. James Naismith from the United States of America (USA) modified from the game of basketball to netball. Then, in 1895, Dr. Isle from the USA went for a visit to the Madame Bergman Osterberg's Physical Training College in Hampstead, London and he taught how netball was played to the students there. In Hampstead, they played netball in their gymnasium using baskets hanging by the wall as their goals and the wall of gymnasium as their line so that the ball does not stray from the game area.
Actually, the game was called basketball because the original goal rings was literally a basket. This means the referee needs to climb up a ladder to retrieve the ball every time they succeed shooting. During that time, there were three sets of rules in the USA which are;
- The official rules for male players
- The Inter-Collegiate rules (also used by male players)
- The Splading rules for the female players.
Then after three years, 1898, a few changes have been made for basketball and it also made changes to the sole of the netball game. Those changes that have been made were;
- Number of players were increased to 9 players.
- The size of the ball need to be equal to the size of a soccer ball.
- The arena was divided into three areas.
- Goal rings were to be reduced from 4.5 cm to 3.8 cm.
- The goal height of goals were risen up to 3 meters.
- Scoring;
- scored within arena = 1 point
- scored from the middle section = 2 points
In 1901, an official netball rule book was published in England. The rules were made to differentiate netball from basketball. Scoring is made every time the ball was succeeded through the goal rings. Netball was officially name "Netball" when the steel shaped goal rings were changed into nets. Many countries like Australia, New Zealand, India and Fiji maintained the name of basketball and did not change it until after a few years.
Meanwhile, in the international league, netball was controlled by the International Federation of Netball Associations that was established in 1960 in Sri Lanka. By the time of 1963, International Netball Championship was held in England with the Australian team as champions. Even though netball have many fans especially the Komanwel, it is not yet considered as an Olympic Sport, Asea Sports and SEA Sport. In Malaysia, the Malaysian Netball Association that have been established during 1978 was an association that controls and observe the flow of the netball activity throughout the country. In school ranks, the Malaysian School Sport Association (MSSM) have been progressing the netball game among the students through tournaments.