Two waste paper bins, one Olympic dream

Sport InsightTwo waste paper bins, one Olympic dreamPublished9 minutes agoImage source, Osterberg CollectionByJohn SkilbeckBBC Sport Senior Journalist"Big up the netballers. That sport is so difficult."- Stormzy, May 2026Derived from basketball and developed by teenagers in late-Victorian England, netball is sport's great misunderstood "girly game".A hotbed of feminist rebellion, its corset-shattering, myth-busting history encompasses a journey of emancipation, imagination, and healthy disdain for patriarchal expectations.Netball is one of the Commonwealth Games' great sports, and Glasgow 2026 will thrust it into the spotlight again: sinew-stretching athleticism, pinpoint shooting, frantic end-to-end pace.British rap superstar Stormzy ripped ligaments in his fingers, external the first time he played netball. Underestimate the physical demands, external of this non-contact sport at your peril.But netball's leaders have an even greater platform than the Commonwealth Games in mind, not least because doubts linger over the long-term future of that event.If ambitious efforts come to fruition, netball will be rewarded with an Olympic Games debut at Brisbane 2032, "future-proofing" it for future generations.So yes, that sport you played in the school playground was slyly, quietly revolutionary.But the suffragist Swede who pioneered netball in England was anything but quiet.Image source, Osterberg CollectionImage caption, Martina Bergman Osterberg, born in 1849, developed a Dartford college that the Windsor Magazine labelled "the most remarkable educational establishment in the world"Martina Bergman Osterberg was a powerhouse liberal, a college owner and principal who strategically and scientifically set out to build "physically perfect" women before dispatching them to teach and create more in their likeness.Netball was a mid-1890s by-product of her extraordinary physical education college operation - a fitt...