The origins of netball in the Bay of Plenty
Netball in the Bay of Plenty Region was originally very community based with Katikati, Tauranga, Te Puke, Rotorua, Whakatane, and Opotiki all playing the game and with the building of the mill at Kawerau another set of town courts were built to meet the needs of the netball playing communities. Rotorua and Tauranga were seen as strong contenders on the national scene with Rotorua being the more dominant of the two larger cities. Netball New Zealand began influencing the boundaries and teams that were able to enter their Annual Provimcial Championships and so mergers were forced on the community netballers. Katikati, Tauranga, Mount Maunganui & Te Puke formed Western Bay of Plenty Association, Rotorua Association remained separate and Whakatane, Kawerau & Opotiki formed Eastern Bay of Plenty Association.
The next round of mergers occurred in the mid to late seventies when Western Bay of Plenty changed its name to Bay of Plenty Coast Union and Rotorua was forced to join the Eastern Bay of Plenty to become Bay of Plenty Union.1999 saw the final merger with the two unions coming together to be Bay of Plenty.
The Region has produced a number of leading coaches, players, umpires and leaders in the game.
In 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts a 30-year-old Canadian immigrant to the USA, James Naismith, was ordered to invent an indoor game for high spirited young men at the School for Christian Workers (later the YMCA).
Most games tried ended with injury rates of staggering proportions! So Naismith conjured up a game whereby a ball had to be lobbed into a high peach basket (his reasoning being that if a ball had to be dropped into the "goal". it couldn't be thrown at breakneck speed).
Basketball was born ... with the orginal game featuring nine players - three forwards, three centres and three guards - simply because Naismith had 18 youths to be amused.
Women's indoor basketball began exactly two days later when female teachers to the gym were captivated by the game, but it wasn't until 1895 that the current game of netball was well and truly shaped.
When Clara Baer, a phys-ed teacher in New Orleans, wrote to Naismith asking for a copy of the rules, the subsequent rules package contained a drawing of the court with lines pencilled across it, simply to show the areas various players could best patrol.
Netball was first played in England in 1895 at Madame Ostenburg's College.
But Baer misinterpreted the lines and thought players couldn't leave those areas! In 1899 her mistake was ratified into the rules of women's basketball as zones.
Three-bounce dribbling had quickly been extended in the men's game (which didn't have no-go zones), but it was seldom used in the women's version when it reached Britain and the Empire. In fact, there was no pressure to increase that form of ball movement and in the end dribbling simply ceased to exist.
"Basketball" was generally thought to have been imported to New Zealand in 1906 by the Reverend JC Jamieson, Travelling Secretary of the Presbyterian Bible Class Union of New Zealand, but there is evidence that Wanganui Girls College had four netball teams in 1899 and a game of basketball was played at Otago Girls High in 1900.
In 1907 a demonstration match was played in a paddock in Eden, Auckland by teams formed from YMCA and Bible Classes. The game was played with nine-a-side rules, as were the majority of matches in New Zealand for the following five decades (creating a bit of stress with other nations who were predominantly playing seven-a-side).
In 1957, the rules regarding the number of players - which were starting to be addressed internationally after years of pressure from the seven-a-side playing countries - were changed in New Zealand.
After a period of transition, the seven-a-side game was taken on board domestically with a passion in 1959 and the first "true" international series was played against Australia the following year. 1960 saw a meeting of the games representatives from England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies in Sri Lanka where the International Federation of Women's Basketball and Netball was formed.
That first test in 1960 saw New Zealand triumph 49-40, only to narrowly lose the following tests 39-44 and 45-46.
The sport's most enduring rivalry had begun.
Formal rules established at the inaugural meeting in 1960 along with an agreement to play a World Championship every four years saw the first world event played in 1963 in Eastbourne in England.
