Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
60 free Netball trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This netball trivia quiz covers the sport from the school court to the World Cup final. The easy questions are the ones any player knows: how many are on court, how long you can hold the ball, how many quarters there are and which countries dominate. Then it moves into the history most fans never hear, from a New Orleans teacher misreading James Naismith's basketball diagram to the first international match in Melbourne in 1938 and the 1960 meeting in Ceylon that standardised the rules. The harder end tests real followers of the game: the three-way tie at the 1979 World Championships, the double-extra-time Commonwealth finals, England's last-second gold in 2018, Fast5 power plays and two-point shots, Super Netball's inaugural champions, the Netball Super League's most successful club and the world's most-capped international. There are also questions on the governing body's many name changes and its long campaign for Olympic inclusion. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the sport, its competitions and its national teams before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our basketball, Commonwealth Games and Australian sport quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many players does each netball team have on court?
Seven
Each player wears a bib with a one- or two-letter abbreviation for a position that restricts where they can go.
Q 02How many seconds may a netball player hold the ball?
Three
The ball must also be released before the landing foot touches the ground again, so running with it is impossible.
Q 03How long is each quarter in a standard game of netball?
15 minutes
Games can be played outdoors or in a covered stadium.
Q 04How high is a netball goal post?
3.05 m (10 ft)
Unlike basketball hoops, the goal rings have no backboards.
Q 05How long is a netball court?
30.5 m
It is 15.25 m wide and divided lengthwise into thirds.
Q 06What is the radius of the semi-circular shooting circle?
4.9 m
Only two positions from each team are allowed inside the attacking circle to shoot.
Q 07How many positions on a netball team are permitted to shoot for goal?
Two
Only the same number of defenders are allowed in the defensive circle to stop them.
Q 08Which position is the only one allowed to move anywhere on court except the shooting circles?
Centre
The other players are restricted to two-thirds of the court, and this player takes the pass that restarts play.
Q 09How far must a defender stand from the player with the ball when defending a pass or shot?
90 cm
Illegal contact means the offender sits out of play until the penalty pass or shot is taken.
Q 10After a goal is scored in netball, how is play restarted?
An alternating centre pass
Centre passes alternate regardless of which team scored the last goal.
Q 11What is the term for a netball player entering an area of the court where their position is not permitted?
Offside
It can happen with or without the ball, and a free pass is awarded where the violation occurred.
Q 12Roughly how many people play netball worldwide, according to World Netball?
20 million
It is played in more than 80 countries and is most popular across the Commonwealth.
Q 13Which sport did netball evolve from?
Basketball
Clara Baer misread the lines on a court diagram as restricted zones, and that mistake stuck.
In which US city was Clara Baer teaching when she wrote to Naismith for the rules of his new game?
Q 21Where was the first World Netball Championships (then the World Tournament) held in 1963?
Eastbourne, England
Eleven nations competed at the Chelsea College of Physical Education.
Q 22At which Commonwealth Games did netball make its debut as an official sport?
1998 Kuala Lumpur
It had been a demonstration sport in 1990, when Australia beat New Zealand in a one-off match.
Q 23In which year did the International Olympic Committee formally recognise netball's governing federation?
1995
Recognition came after 20 years of lobbying, but the sport has never been played at the Olympics.
New Orleans
The diagram's lines were meant to show patrol areas, but she read them as zones players could not leave.
Q 15Who introduced Naismith's game to her Hampstead students in 1893, from which netball emerged?
Martina Bergman-Osterberg
Her college moved the game outdoors onto grass and swapped baskets for rings with nets.
Q 16In which year were the first codified rules of netball published?
1901
They were issued by the Ling Association, later the Physical Education Association of the United Kingdom.
Q 17Where was the first international netball match played, on 20 August 1938?
Melbourne
Australia won comfortably at Royal Park in what was also the first Test between the two rivals.
Q 18What was the score when Australia beat New Zealand in the first ever netball Test in 1938?
40-11
A planned 1940 return tour was cancelled by the outbreak of World War II.
Q 19In which country did representatives meet in 1960 to standardise the international rules of netball?
Sri Lanka
The meeting also created the International Federation of Netball and Women's Basketball.
Q 20What was netball commonly called in Australia before the name was officially changed in 1970?
Women's basketball
The Australian Basketball Union offered to pay for the name change but the netball body initially refused.
Q 24Which nation shared the 1979 World Championship title with Australia and New Zealand?
Trinidad and Tobago
All three finished level on points in the round robin, and there were no finals.
Q 25In which year was the World Netball Championships renamed the Netball World Cup?
2015
Since 1991 the tournament has used semi-finals and a final rather than a pure round robin.
Q 26Which city was chosen to host the 2027 Netball World Cup?
Sydney
From 2027 the tournament was set to move to a two-year cycle ahead of the first Men's Netball World Cup.
Q 27Who scored the winning goal in the last second to give England Commonwealth gold over Australia in 2018?
Helen Housby
England won 52-51 and became only the third team ever to win the title.
Q 28Who scored the winning goal for New Zealand in double extra time in the 2010 Commonwealth Games final?
Maria Tutaia
The 66-64 epic against Australia lasted 84 minutes.
Q 29Which Australian shooter scored 49 from 53 to clinch the 2014 Commonwealth Games final?
Caitlin Bassett
Australia beat New Zealand 58-40 for their third Commonwealth title.
Q 30Which coach guided Australia to the inaugural Commonwealth Games netball title in 1998?
Jill McIntosh
Australia beat New Zealand 42-39 in the final.