58 Fun Facts About Netball

What tells a netball umpire each player's position?

Bib letters such as GS or WD name one of the seven positions, and each position is confined to set areas of the court.

Which basketball skill is banned outright in netball?

Dribbling is out: after a catch a player cannot run with the ball or bounce it back to herself, so it moves only by passes, each released within three seconds.

What settles a netball final still level after extra time?

A two-goal lead ends it, however long that takes: in the 2010 Commonwealth Games final, extra time ended level and play ran on until New Zealand led Australia 66-64.

Which part of a basketball hoop is missing from a netball goal?

The backboard is absent, so every shot has to drop cleanly through a ring set 3.05 m (10 ft) above the court.

It is illegal to pass a netball untouched over what?

A whole third is off limits: the ball must be touched in each third of the 30.5 m court, so nobody can hurl it from one end to the other.

Despite its name, what shape is the goal circle on a netball court?

A semicircle with a 4.9 m radius is drawn around each goal post, and a goal only counts when it is shot from inside it.

Besides the goal shooter, which netball position is allowed to score?

Goal attack is the only other scorer, and even she must be standing inside the goal circle when she shoots.

Which netball position has the run of all three thirds of the court?

Centre roams all three thirds and is barred only from the two goal circles, while every other position is shut out of at least one third.

Which netball offence is a defender committing by guarding a shot from closer than 0.9 m (3 ft)?

Obstruction hands the shooter a penalty pass or shot, and the offender must stand beside her, out of play, until the ball has gone.

After a goal is scored in netball, how is play restarted?

An alternating centre pass means conceding a goal does not win you the ball: the two teams simply take turns, whoever scored last.

What is the call when a netball player strays into an area their position is barred from?

Offside is called whether or not the player has the ball, and the other team gets a free pass where they strayed.

Roughly how many people play netball worldwide, by its governing body's count?

About 20 million play, by World Netball's count, most of them in Commonwealth countries, because the game spread from England across the British Empire.

What did American teacher Clara Baer reportedly misread in the 1890s, accidentally giving netball its zones?

A court diagram, the story goes, arrived with pencilled lines showing where players could best patrol; Baer read them as boundaries, and by 1899 her mistake was in the rules.

What served as goals when Madame Osterberg's students first played the game that became netball?

Waste paper baskets stood in for goals at her English college in 1895, before rings with nets took their place.

Netball grew out of basketball, invented in 1891 by which Massachusetts gym teacher?

James Naismith invented basketball in 1891, and by 1895 Martina Bergman-Osterberg's students in England were playing the version that grew into netball.

Which netball rule stops a player from running with the ball?

Footwork is the call: once the landing foot is lifted it cannot touch down again until the ball has gone, which is why players pivot instead of run.

Where was the first international netball match played, on 20 August 1938?

Melbourne hosted it under Australia's seven-a-side rules; New Zealand, used to nine-a-side, lost 40-11.

Which Caribbean nation's Sunshine Girls reached their first Commonwealth Games netball final in 2022?

Jamaica knocked out New Zealand in the Birmingham semi-final and danced on court to celebrate, before losing the gold-medal match to Australia.

What did netball's nations settle at a 1960 meeting in Sri Lanka?

One set of rules ended decades of countries playing different versions, and cleared the way for the first world tournament three years later.

What was netball commonly called in Australia before the name was officially changed in 1970?

Women's basketball stayed the official Australian name until 1970, so Australia won the first world netball title in 1963 while calling the game something else at home.

Where was the first World Netball Championships (then the World Tournament) held in 1963?

Eastbourne, England staged it, yet the country that gave the world netball finished third at home, behind New Zealand and unbeaten Australia.

Which city's Commonwealth Games in 1998 were the first to award netball medals?

Kuala Lumpur finally gave medals to a sport played mostly in Commonwealth countries; until then its only Games outing was a one-off demonstration match in Auckland in 1990.

Mwai Kumwenda, player of the tournament at the 2015 Netball World Cup, shoots for which African nation?

Malawi finished only sixth in 2015, yet Kumwenda was named the tournament's best player after scoring more goals than anyone else.

Which nation shared the 1979 World Championship title with Australia and New Zealand?

Trinidad and Tobago, the hosts, beat Australia 40-38 but lost to New Zealand, leaving all three level at the top of the table.

Why did three nations share netball's 1979 world title?

No deciding match was played: the top three each won eight of nine round-robin games, and the rules offered no way to split them.

Which city was chosen to host the 2027 Netball World Cup?

Sydney, host in 1991 and 2015, was given 2027, the last World Cup of the four-year cycle before the event moves to every two years.

Who scored the winning goal in the last second to give England Commonwealth gold over Australia in 2018?

Helen Housby scored with a second left for a 52-51 win, making England the first champions other than Australia or New Zealand.

Who scored the winning goal for New Zealand in double extra time in the 2010 Commonwealth Games final?

Maria Tutaia's goal made it 66-64 in Delhi, rescuing a New Zealand side that had thrown away a seven-goal lead over Australia in the final quarter.

Which Australian shooter scored 49 from 53 to clinch the 2014 Commonwealth Games final?

Caitlin Bassett's shooting turned the tables: New Zealand had beaten Australia in the previous two Commonwealth finals, and this time lost 58-40.

Which footballing brothers' sister, Tracey, coached England to Commonwealth netball gold in 2018?

Gary and Phil Neville are her brothers, Phil her twin by 12 minutes, and a year after the gold both twins led England teams at World Cups.

What nickname does the Australia national netball team go by?

The Diamonds only got their name in 2008, 70 years after Australia's first Test; until then the world's most successful team had no nickname.

What is the nickname of New Zealand's national netball team?

The Silver Ferns first topped the world rankings in January 2011, three months after winning Commonwealth gold in Delhi, ending Australia's run at number one since the list began in 2008.

Which Australian Prime Minister called the 1991 World Championship final the best contest he'd seen?

Bob Hawke was in the crowd as goal keeper Roselee Jencke's late intercept protected a 53-52 win over New Zealand, Australia's first world title on home soil.

What is the name of the annual netball series contested only by Australia and New Zealand since 2010?

The Constellation Cup is named after the Southern Cross, the constellation that looks down on both countries and appears on both their flags.

Which four nations traditionally contest the Netball Quad Series?

Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa are the regulars; when Australia sat out in January 2020, the series ran instead as the Nations Cup.

Which shooter for South Africa and New Zealand is the world's most-capped netball international?

Irene van Dyk switched after moving to Wellington in 2000 and was a world champion with New Zealand three years later, on her way to 217 caps in all.

Where are three-point shots taken from in Fast5 netball?

Outside the circle is three-point range, part of a shorter five-a-side format drawn up to make netball faster and win it a wider audience.

Which of these positions does five-a-side Fast5 netball drop?

Wing attack goes, and wing defence with her, so the same full-size court is shared by just ten players.

Under Fast5's original rules, what happens during the one quarter a team nominates as its 'power play'?

Its goals count double, turning a three-point super shot into six; a 2022 rewrite made the power play the closing stretch of every quarter, open to both teams.

What was the Fast5 format originally called when introduced for the 2009 World Netball Series?

Fastnet lasted three World Netball Series, all staged in England, before a review cut the teams to five a side and relaunched the game as Fast5 in 2012.

Which team were the inaugural Super Netball champions in 2017?

Sunshine Coast Lightning had only been founded in 2016, and a year after that first title they kept it by upsetting West Coast Fever on the Fever's home court in Perth.

Which Super Netball club, backed by an Australian rules football club of the same name, pulled out after the 2023 season?

Collingwood Magpies, co-captained by England's Geva Mentor, were withdrawn by the football club behind them, which left the players searching for new contracts.

Which club stood alone on five Netball Super League titles until Manchester Thunder matched them in 2026?

Team Bath won the fifth of their titles in 2013, and were left out altogether when the league relaunched with eight clubs in 2025.

Which health insurer put its name on both England's Netball Superleague and the national team, the Roses?

Vitality renewed as title partner in October 2018, six months after England's Commonwealth gold, and from then on the national side played as the Vitality Roses.

World Netball's head office is at MediaCityUK, also home to BBC Sport, in which English city?

Salford: BBC Sport was moved there from London in 2011, part of a BBC push to serve audiences and create jobs outside the capital, and netball's world body works from the same campus.

Which name did netball's world governing body drop in 2021 to become World Netball?

International Netball Federation made way in June 2021 in a rebrand meant to lift participation and add events; an earlier name still was IFNA, the International Federation of Netball Associations.

Which Olympic Games did World Netball start campaigning in 2021 to join?

Brisbane 2032 was the target, with Netball Australia as partner: netball has been an IOC-recognised sport since 1995, yet it has never been played at an Olympics.

Which African nation's She Cranes beat the hosts to take fifth place at the 2023 Netball World Cup?

Uganda only returned to the World Cup in 2015 after 36 years away, and eight years later they finished above the hosts, winning the fifth-place play-off 49-47.

In High Five, England's five-a-side primary-school netball, what were off-court squad members asked to do?

Serve as timekeeper or scorer: nobody in a High Five squad gets a rest, and everyone rotates through the positions between quarters.

What does walking netball allow that netball bans?

An extra step with the ball, plus four seconds to pass instead of three, makes up for the ban on running and jumping.

Which group gets its first Netball World Cup under plans World Netball announced in 2025?

Men's teams were promised a World Cup because, World Netball said, their game was gaining momentum rapidly; England's men had played a first international only in October 2022.

Which staple of schoolgirls' sportswear was invented at Madame Osterberg's college, the English birthplace of netball?

The gymslip was devised there by Mary Tait so that women could move freely, and it went on to be standard wear for schoolgirls through much of the 20th century.

Netball grew out of basketball, yet a netball is almost identical in size and weight to which ball?

A soccer ball is a near twin at about 70 cm round and up to 450 g, and fittingly so: basketball's very first games, in 1891, were played with a soccer ball.

Which English football club's netball team joined the relaunched Netball Super League in 2025?

Nottingham Forest own and run the side, one of two newcomers admitted as the league shrank from ten teams to eight on its way to turning professional.

A military coup cost which Pacific nation the right to host the 2007 World Netball Championships?

Fiji lost the 2007 tournament after its December 2006 coup, so the event moved to Auckland, where Australia took the title from defending champions New Zealand.

Which team reached the 1995 World Netball Championships final in its first tournament back after 25 years away?

South Africa had been shut out since 1969 over apartheid. On their return the team beat New Zealand 59-57 on the way to the final, which Australia won 68-48.

Which Australian city hosted the first World Youth Netball Championships in 1988, staged for the country's Bicentenary?

Canberra staged the under-21 tournament as part of Australia's Bicentenary celebrations, and its success led to a youth championship every four years. The hosts won that first title.

Which city hosted the 2023 Netball World Cup, the first held in Africa?

Cape Town beat a rival bid from Auckland because the federation judged that the government spending promised on courts and coaching would do more to grow the game worldwide.