“Here if you need”: netball, heritage and the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games

Guest blogger: Dr Kate Kirby, 2025 Queensland Heritage Register Fellow.

Netball’s international history

As sport historians explain, basketball was first developed by James Naismith and later influenced by Clara Baer, who helped shape the game we know today as netball.(1) Like cricket, the spread of netball was initially rooted in British colonial activity; however, as Netball Australia have indicated, “the game is now played on every continent except Antarctica”.(2)

The way the game is played has changed over time; for example, team size shifted from five to nine players before settling on the seven-a-side rules we know today. The rules of the sport were codified internationally in the 1960s, and netball has been played in formalised World Championships since then. The sport was showcased as a demonstration sport at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games and has featured at the Commonwealth Games since 1998.

A (short) history of Queenslanders playing netball

The legacy of netball exists across Queensland's cities and towns. From paddocks to purpose-built suburban courts, the tangible and intangible heritage of Queenslanders playing this popular sport persists. 

These days, netball has a firm grasp across most suburbs. A grassroots sport, local netball courts are home to weekday training sessions and a full day of Saturday games. Just ask any resident living near suburban netball courts how busy Saturday netty can get. From the early hours to dusk, the rhythmic whistles, clockwork sirens, and parking challenges surrounding grassroots netball are today part of Queensland culture.

The sport has been played in Australia for over 100 years, growing in popularity from the late 1890s into the 1910s. Netball in Queensland was popularised as a pastime through school sport. The Queensland Schools Basketball Association oversaw school competitions, with teams often travelling by train to play against the best in their region. Initially, in Brisbane, interschool netball carnivals were held at the Exhibition Grounds, while in regional and rural areas, local paddocks were repurposed for game day.

As the sport grew in popularity outside of the school environment, community members self-organised into local clubs. The Queensland Ladies’ Basket Ball Association (QLBBA) was formed in 1916, with a second state-based association, the Queensland Women’s Basket Ball Association (QWBBA), introduced by 1929.(3) By 1938, the Queensland Basketball League (QBL) had also developed, providing three Queensland associations in the Brisbane area. (4) Games were played across Brisbane locations, including the Brisbane Gymnasium, Albert Park, the Exhibition Grounds, and New Farm Park.(5)

The sport was also growing in popularity across regional and rural areas of Queensland. At times, the Brisbane-based associations planned ‘country trips’ to play the best netball players across the regions. For example, in 1937, the QLBBA organised a tour north to play teams in Townsville, Mount Morgan and Rockhampton.(6) The following year, the QLBBA received expressions of interest from clubs in Malanda, Quilpie, Toowoomba and Yungaburra to host.(7)

Queensland's implementation of the National Fitness Act of 1941 further enhanced support for the sport. Across the state, regional National Fitness Committees included the sport in their programming and provided much-needed administrative capability.(8) Such support meant that netball continued to be played in some regions during World War II.

In the early 1970s, the Queensland association followed the national trend of renaming from basketball to netball and became known as the Queensland Netball Association (QNA). The renaming of the sport in Australia was solidified in popular culture with a 1977 Australian Women’s Weekly magazine article declaring netball as “the most popular sport for women”.(9)

Today, Netball Queensland operates as the State Sporting Organisation (SSO), overseeing the growth, development and governance of the sport throughout the state.(10) At the high-performance end, Queensland currently fields two teams in the national netball competition: the Queensland Firebirds, based in Brisbane, and the Sunshine Coast Lightning, further north. In addition to cheering for these teams in the Suncorp Super Netball league, Queenslanders also enjoy the local derby when the two teams clash on court, at times known as “the battle of the Bruce” (Highway).(11)

Places of netball heritage significance in Queensland

The Queensland Heritage Register lists places identified as having cultural heritage significance to Queenslanders. For inclusion on the Register, places need to be considered significant at the state level and contribute to community understanding of patterns and evolution of Queensland’s history.

The representation of netball in the Queensland Heritage Register could be revised to better reflect the sport's popularity throughout history. When searching the Register for basket ball, basketball and netball, results are minimal and include brief historical mentions related to Queensland schools, two parks and a former police station. 

Only one Queensland Heritage Register entry includes a mention of netball as a cause of heritage significance. The Register entry for Rockhampton Girls Grammar School recognises netball as relating to significance criteria D, “the place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places”. 

Criteria D: “Paterson House, erected in 1891 [with several later additions] is the original school building and remained the only major school building until the 1960s. Designed by prominent Rockhampton architect EM Hockings, it is recognised by the school community as the symbolic heart of the school. In common with a number of educational buildings of the period, Paterson House employs the Collegiate Gothic architectural vocabulary to exemplify the pedagogical culture of the school. It is the principal member of an intact group of early terraced school facilities including the former gymnasium, tennis court and netball court”.

The other Register entries refer only to the sport in their descriptions of history, not to the significance of the place. The other school entries on the Register merely record when courts were initially built. For example:

Allenstown State School, Rockhampton

“There were other grounds improvements in the 1920s and early 1930s. By 1929, sports’ facilities for the school’s 630 students included ground ‘marked for football’, a concrete cricket pitch, two basketball courts and an ant-bed tennis court”.

The two park Register entries that mention netball in the place history include Laurel Bank Park in Toowoomba and New Farm Park in Brisbane. The Register entry for New Farm Park in Brisbane notes “Two dressing sheds were built near the oval in 1938, and basketball courts were constructed 1938-39, around the tennis courts that existed in the northern corner of the park- currently the library's carpark”. Before also recording that “the tennis courts and basketball courts lost when the library was built in 1975”.

The history of netball facilities is also mentioned in the Register entry for the former Woolloongabba Police Station in Brisbane.

“A park and playground were completed in 1938 on land adjacent to the police station, at the corner of Main and Vulture streets. The concept for the park and playground, which covered approximately two and a half acres (1ha), was attributed to the Police Welfare Club and included three tennis courts, dressing rooms, grandstands, umpires' stands, and a playground or "children's sanctuary" where children would be able to play in safety under the eyes of the police. A basketball court was constructed there in 1939”.

Other existing Queensland Heritage Register entries could also be bolstered to better detail the history of netball, even when the playing field there is no longer extant. For example, the Register entry for the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds mentions some sports by name, but not netball.

“During the 1920s, the RNA also sought to make the Exhibition Grounds a first-class venue for cricket, football and other sports, although it had limited success. The year 1928 was a high point for the Association's sporting ambitions, with the showground hosting the first England versus Australia cricket test of the 1928-29 series”.

As with many field sports, sometimes there are no built environment reminders of historic netball experiences. Many netball games were played on fields barely marked with the court rules of the day. Therefore, some places of netball historical importance may never make their way to the Queensland Heritage Register. An example of this is Albert Park in Brisbane, where many netball competitions were held in the first half of the twentieth century. The only mention of Albert Park in the Queensland Heritage Register concerns remnants of air-raid shelters.

Could the 2032 Olympic Games increase awareness of Queensland’s netball heritage?

Possibly! As the 2032 Olympic Games approach, World Netball and Netball Australia have launched a campaign for the inclusion of netball as part of the Brisbane Olympic program. To date, more than 91,105 people have pledged their support.(12) The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has acknowledged World Netball on its list of recognised federations since the 1990s; however, the sport has yet to be included in a Summer Olympic Games program.(13)

The list of sports included in the Olympic Games is not static and evolves across the decades in response to social and power structures and influence. At the Athens 1896 Olympic Games, athletes competed across nine sports. By the time Melbourne hosted the 1956 Games, the program had increased to 17 sports. When Sydney took the reins in 2000, 28 sports were featured, including two new additions: Taekwondo and Triathlon.

Notable recent additions have included sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing. The program for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games includes two new sports (flag football and squash) and three returning sports (baseball/softball, lacrosse and cricket). And no breakdancing, after its somewhat controversial inclusion at the Paris 2024 Games. The IOC has iteratively introduced flexibility for such change. For example, the ‘Agenda 2020’ reform recommendations enable Organising Committees to propose events for inclusion in their Games. The IOC, however, retains decision-making authority on the inclusion of sport.(14)

Is it now the time for netball to take centre stage at the Olympic Games with Brisbane as the home court? Having the first netball game at the Olympic Games held at a Queensland sporting venue would raise overall recognition of netball's history and heritage across the state.

In 2019, the bronze life-sized statue of champion netballer Laura Geitz was moved from the Brisbane Entertainment Centre to the Queensland State Netball Centre. A Queenslander, Geitz has recently urged the community to “imagine, like I am, if netball is part of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics”.(15)

Dr Kate Kirby

The Queensland Heritage Register Fellowship is generously supported by the Heritage Branch, Department of Environment, Science and Innovation. 

Other blogs by Dr Kate Kirby:

• Connecting sporting memory and record with state heritage

References 

1. Ian Jobling and Pamela Barham, “The Development of Netball and the All-Australia Women’s Basketball Association (AAWBBA): 1891-1939,” Sporting Traditions 8, no. 1 (1991): 29–48.
2. Malcolm MacLean et al., “Local, National and Global Histories of Netball: An Overview,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 39, no. 13 (2022): 1411–21, https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2022.2178768; Netball Australia, “It’s about Merit. It’s about Time.,” August 14, 2025, https://netball.com.au/news/its-about-merit-its-about-time
3. “Women in Sport: Ladies’ Basket Ball Prospects for Association,” Sunday Mail, March 18, 1934; Jobling and Barham, “The Development of Netball and the All-Australia Women’s Basketball Association (AAWBBA): 1891-1939.”
4. Edna Strachan, “Three Associations Here: A Basket Ball Record,” The Telegraph, June 3, 1938.
5. “Basketball: Is Interest Waning?,” The Telegraph, March 2, 1928; Sunday Mail, “Women in Sport: Ladies’ Basket Ball Prospects for Association”; Jobling and Barham, “The Development of Netball and the All-Australia Women’s Basketball Association (AAWBBA): 1891-1939.”
6. “Basketball: Tour North Queensland Team’s Pioneer Venture,” The Courier Mail, September 3, 1937.
7. Strachan, “Three Associations Here: A Basket Ball Record.”
8. “Mareeba Notes: National Fitness,” The Cairns Post, June 27, 1946; “National Fitness Committee Report,” The Townsville Daily Bulletin, September 7, 1950.
9. Jane Camens, “Netball: Australia’s Most Popular Sport for Women,” The Australian Women’s Weekly, July 20, 1977.
10. Netball Queensland, “About Netball Queensland,” 2025, https://qld.netball.com.au/about-netball-queensland.
11. Sunshine Coast Lightning, “Lightning down Firebirds in Battle of the Bruce,” 2022, https://sunshinecoastlightning.com.au/lightning-down-firebirds-in-battle-of-the-bruce/.
12. “Netball 2032 Olympic Bid,” 2025, https://olympics.netball.com.au/.
13. International Olympic Committee, “Recognised Federations,” 2025, https://www.olympics.com/ioc/recognised-international-federations.
14. International Olympic Committee, “Olympic Agenda 2020,” 2014, https://www.olympics.com/ioc/olympic-agenda-2020.
15. Netball Australia, “Geitz on Netball’s Olympic Dream,” October 23, 2025, https://netball.com.au/news/geitz-netballs-olympic-dream.