One of the great puzzles of netball - why have restricted movement up and down the court?

This came about through a misunderstanding! The men's game - Basketball was invented by a man called James Naismith in 1891 and there was a PE Teacher called Clara Baer of New Orleans and she asked for a copy of the rules. So he sent a copy of the rules and a included a drawing with pencil lines across it showing areas which various players could best patrol. She misinterpreted these lines to mean that players couldn't leave those areas and she wrote this rule into her version.

Then it got worse! In 1903 a gym teacher in Massachusetts called Senda Berenson further modified the game as she thought the current game as to unseemly for young women, so she banned tackling and instituted the 3 second rule for holding the ball as it was felt running backwards and forwards would be too hard on the young women's hearts!

I can't imagine what Senda Berenson make of the physicality of the modern game!