Two years a go our children started to play Ringball and heerwith this Sport's history.
Ringball is a century old sport that was introduced at the South African Teachers Colleges as a game for ladies. Over a period the rules were adapted to be more suitable for ladies to compete and a new game was born called Korfball. During 1907 to 1916, the game was played under the banner of the South African Basketball Union, after which the then Transvaal Korfball Board came into existence.
Korfball was introduced as an official school sport at traditional Afrikaans schools and remained a school sport until the 1980s. Men were mainly administrators, referees and selectors for the sport, but could not resist the game and in 1970 at the annual national tournament in Messina two teams comprising referees played the first men’s game during the lunch hour. This paved the way for men’s teams to partake at national level for the first time in 1971.
The sport continued over the years with clubs competing for various trophies. After club competitions are completed, provincial teams are selected to partake at national level, to be crowned as the top SA provincial team. Due to husbands and wives playing the sport, this became a popular family sport with children playing socially while their parents were busy training. The executive committee realised a competition had to be introduced to keep the children interested.
Current age groups taking part in ringball varies from u/11 boys and girls to masters men and ladies (over the age of 45), emphasising the importance of the game as a family sport.
Various factors over the years prompted administration to consider a name change in order to be recognised by all the sport governing bodies in SA as a unique sport code and during the centenary celebrations in 2007, the name was officially changed from korfball to ringball. The first three years in the history of ringball saw many changes and developments; with most probably the biggest historic event taking place on 27 November 2010 during a gala event when an announcement was made with regard to the newly formed International Ringball Federation.
Considerable development has already taken place at primary and secondary level and today there are approximately 2000 senior players and 900 junior players playing ringball.
Polokwame has two clubs, Jakaranda and Parke.