Francois Cleophas
Netball had become established in South Africa by 1917, much later than other sports that originated in the 1800s. South Africa, however, had a visible presence in the early years of codifying netball for international competition.
The president of the all-white South African Women’s Netball Assocation, established in 1951, represented South Africa at the inaugural International Netball Conference in London in 1957. The country was also part of the second Conference of Netball and Australasian Basketball Countries in Sri Lanka in 1960, where a set of international rules was framed.
South African netball history writers have all but ignored netball experiences in black communities in South Africa, however.
The 2023 Netball World Cup tournament, hosted by South Africa in Cape Town, provides an opportunity to correct this.
As a scholar of sport history, with a focus on marginalised communities, I conducted a study on this untold history of
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