History of Netball 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 dropped into the "goal", it couldn't be thrown at breakneck speed). Basketball was born, with the original game featuring nine players - three forwards, three centres and three guards - simply because Naismith had 18 youths to keep 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 sports 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. 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. Netball was first played in England in 1895 at Madame Ostenburg's College. In the first half of the 20th century, Netball's popularity continued to grow, with the game being played in many British Commonwealth countries. There were no standard rules at that time with both nine-a-side and five-a-side versions of the game. During an Australian tour of England in 1957, discussions took place concerning standardising the rules of the sport and this led to representatives from England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and The West Indies