Now if you thought rugby was popular. Check out netball. If you go to New Zealand in the winter you will pass girls playing netball often.
So Focus. I need to say right now that I know almost as much about netball as I do about rugby. So don’t go yelling at me. I did play it when I was at school. All NZ school kids play at least one sport, it is mandatory at most schools and the heaving netball courts on Saturday mornings were a fantastic place to meet boys. (Most of us attend all-girls schools remember) But oh, Netball Players suffered because for whatever reason, it was deemed that netball was a winter sport and like rugby played outside. My clearest memory of playing netball is having freezing thighs and arms – cold that is like a burn on your legs. Not attractive!
So, Netball began in NZ in 1906 and in the beginning was called Womens Basketball. By the 1920’s it had been decided that the ball could not be bounced, you could not step more than a pace with the ball in your hands, you cannot hold the ball for longer than three seconds or something, the hoop lost its net, the hems went UP and the games name was changed to Netball. Though I need to point out that there is NO NET. So calling it NET BALL still mystifies me. Netball is played in over 50 countries now so they tell me. Australia and South Africa has been playing it as long as NZ and are amongst our archest of arch rivals.
In my opinion I think the girls just wanted their own game because the boys would not let them play rugby because Girls play too dirty. Both games are played on Saturday morning. So the girls devised a faster, more skill-full, full on, running game that most boys just cannot keep up with, but enjoy watching. Nowadays boys can play in the social grades but only if they cut their fingernails and take out their earrings. Scratching and eye gouging can sometimes become a problem.
Each team has seven players on either side and there are lines on the courts telling you where you should not be. There are numerous rules that I never really understood.
(D just jump in any time! My friend D is a netball COACH, she reads this blog every morning in NZ, while drinking strong coffee and I am sure she is going to have something to say about my somewhat garbled monologue on her favourite sport.)
The girls, thousands and thousands and thousands of them, play outside on concrete or tarmac courts. Multiple courts are surrounded in tall linked chain deer fences. Did I tell you it was grey and cold. Grim. They wear short flared skirts with bare legs, matching knickers and long socks – in the winter. The girls are tough and sometimes really, really mean. Their fingernails are inspected before the game, then they are handed scissors or tape. Earrings have to come out in case someone rips them out. Screams of ‘Contact!’ are heard all over the courts. Every Intermediate and High School in NZ worth it’s salt has a rugby field and numerous outdoor netball courts. When the girls are older and in the club teams I think they have Indoor Squeaky Shoe Courts. Softies!
Last time I looked New Zealand Silver Ferns are ranked second in the world. I cannot remember who is first! Bet you do though.
Of course nice girls play too but they are often Goal Keep. (me) You see I really did play netball for a number of years. The family game was hockey but I liked my teeth too much so I played netball. I was tall and had long monkey arms. I think the idea was that the team I played for was so good, that the other team did not get down into their goal (that I was left to guard) very often, so I would not do very much work. This was true. I was the most bored netball player in the history of the game. I got to be very good at the clapping and encouraging of my team mates. Not being able to catch was a problem, but the girls soon worked out that they could use me like a board and bounce the ball off me to another player if play happened to drift down to my end. All I had to do was hold my hands up, usually to protect my face. And sometimes do a lot of jumping and waving my arms in the air to distract people. This kind of worked out. Though there was that time that they bounced the ball off my head by mistake. Maybe I was dreaming or singing to myself and did not notice them coming. But I was a good sport. I told you it is a fast game!
The real reason that they kept me on the team was that I was a nice quiet girl ( ha ha ha) and often my older brothers friends (not rugby players) and friends of my older brothers friends (not rugby players either) would visit me at the courts hoping to meet my netball friends. The nice bit was that I always introduced everybody. Also and I cannot tell you how important this was. One of the boys had a motorbike.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
51 responses to “Netball: The other New Zealand Sport.”
Great post. I can confirm that netball is a rough game: In my 50s I played in a mixed team from the Chamber of Commerce where I worked, against a team of mentally handicapped adults. Teams have 7 players, and 14 players were injured in one way or another (on our side, in self defence!) But a good time was had by all. Then we graduated to 5-a-side football: no fun at all.
You are a BRAVE woman!! c
My sister-in-law is a netball coach, I’ve never been one for ball sports. What are them jar-thingies in the bottom photo?
oh cindy those are very old glass insulators for wires on the power poles, I have over a hundred of them, aren’t they fabulous! That beautiful blue! I need to do some research as to where the sand came for that glass, I am sure Ball was not sharing their mountain! c
They are very beautiful 🙂
Coloured glass plays with the light and the colour changes as the day goes past.. yes they are beautiful, thanks cin. c
It’s always good to have brothers with cute friends!! I was never really a sport type of gal either, skiing to me means sitting by the fire sipping hot cocoa! Your stories make me smile and I’m always learning something new!
oh .. I must tell you the story of my skiing experience one day, it ENSURED that I never went further than the ski chalet ever again! c
You describe that cold burn feeling just right, why couldn’t we wear trousers for heavens’ sake? I was one of the tall ones too and was put in Goal defence? was that it, the companion one to the proper goal keep. I think I was supposed to run about a bit more. I preferred lacrosse where you really didn’t have to do very much at all providing you could throw the ball as far away from you as possible on the rare occasions you had managed to keep it in your leather net thingy and it was played on grass, softer when you fell over than the tarmac. I miss team sports not 🙂
I have never even seen a game of lacrosse.. it is a mystery to me that game. And yes the goal defence runs a bit more and can go further that is why I was Keep. I could remember where i was meant to be!! Though my sporting career was not a long one! and yes falling in netball was Nasty! c
Oh the memories! I was the small skinny kid, who ducked an dived her way away from the BIG girls. Netball was far less physical, unlike hockey and lacross which frankly scared those big knickers right off me!
oh those big knickers I remember those.. rompers!!! ha ha ha .. why would they make us wear those!! NUNS! c
Great big blue ones too. At least I didn’t go to a school with a green uniform!
Well I hope i don’t give you nightmares but our uniform was red! RED ROMPERS! What have you done I haven’t though of those nasty things for years! Now I WILL have nightmares. In my year The idea was to get the Largest sized rompers you could buy (or hand me down as you know) so they hung right down like clowns pants! To our knees!. not for netball you understand this was just for PhysEd (PE)!. dreadful girls.. c
I’m booking the therapy sessions as I type! RED, oh my! And you girls were really something, and yes I remember hand-me downs all too well. My partner still has nightmares about a Yellow zip cardigan. Ha, to look at him now.
I’m looking forward to the next installments 🙂
Memories for me too – Catholic school run by nuns and netball and hockey in winter (short skirts, huge navy knickers and all) and tennis and rounders in the summer. I am short and was even shorter then and not at all sporty, so netball was a real trial for me. Once they put me in goal (just the once!). I was terrible and really trying hard when a shot came through the hoop and hit me straight in the face (I was looking up eagerly and waving my short little arms around) and I had two very lovely black eyes for a while 😦
Oh no that is a terrible story, you looking up and waving your short little arms about and BAM! It does not surprise me that you were taught by nuns either.. convent girls have a certain outlook that is, shall we say, less than respectful about some things! c
Delightfully outrageous! That’s you, that’s your description of the game. I’m so hideously non-athletic that I can’t begin to share such exciting stories, so I enjoy yours doubly. Not sure I understand the smallest part of how netball works, but then that’s how I operate in all sporting arenas, so no surprise there. I’m sure going to have to do some research, so I can fill in the blanks when I reread this, which I will undoubtedly do!
Oh I understand what you mean, absolutely. I had forgotton so much that I had to Google how many girls there were on a team! c
Hmm, so the finer sex needs weaker sports, but we’re still prone to inflicting serious bodily harm. This is just too funny.
Be very careful who you play netball with katherine.. c
Oh I bet the boy with the motor bike was the MOST popular!
absolutely! c
Another sporting mystery solved!
Sort of…
At least now I have a vague idea of what netball is. 🙂
You know as much as I do anyway.. and that is not a lot!! c
Aaaah, netball. Compulsory school sport for years, I remember it well. As do my knees – did you know it’s the hardest sport on your knees, because of the twisting? And they say women are the weaker sex – ha! I reckon most rugby players would have trouble keeping up with the pace of a netball game!
Oh I absolutely agree. netball is not a sport for those sissy rugby players.. I bet you were a pretty good netball player, if your knees are still talking about it! c
One of the boys had a motorbike?!?! I had one of those (the boy, not the motorbike), in high school and since I ran track I didn’t have to share…. Oh, my poor mother. I don’t think we have netball, here in Canada, though it sounds like a whole lot more fun than women’s basketball. We have all these prissy rules and indoor gyms. Boo to that!
Your poor mother, i have a feeling you would be quite good at netball too, fast!! c
My mother would never have let me go out with a boy with a motorbike. She barely let me go out with ones with cars 🙂 I never did school sports – I was a nerd of sorts. t
I know T, this was the beauty of the netball courts, you could chat with the boys after the game and no-one knew the difference. The boy with the motorbike was a friend of the family, he was there to chat up my friends!! Fun though! c
I never quite know what to expect when I get over here. Recipes, tales from the Prairie, childhood memories, adult work experiences, and sports. (SPORTS?!?!?!) The unexpected. That’s why I come here. Well, that and the fact that you know how to tell a tale and, more importantly, put it to paper. Thanks for another great post!
sadly (not) this may be the last sports post, we must get back to the food soon , John is beginning to starve!! c