Description
Coffee Table Book of: Netball is a large format book of netball, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: the ball, the tall post with its steel ring and open net and no backboard, the lines that split the court in thirds, halls and outdoor courts standing empty, the kit being made and cared for, the old game, and a few players seen far off in plain dark clothing.
The kit is laid out plain: a white ball with a pebbled grip and a smaller one beside it, a ball cut in half to show its lining, a pump with its needle in the valve, court shoes with thick cushioned soles, a stack of folded bibs, a whistle on its cord, tape and an ankle brace, and an open kit bag. The goal is seen close: a steel ring jutting from the top of its post, a ball dropping through the open net, a whole post on its heavy base, and the long shadow of a ring cast across the ground at evening.
The making and the care follow a steel post painted, a stack of steel tube, a net mended knot by knot, a white line painted between strips of tape, a hall floor sealed and swept, and leaves and rain water cleared from an outdoor court. The past runs from an old laced leather ball, canvas plimsolls and a pleated wool tunic to an old iron post rusting in long grass, a line marking cart in morning mist and a bucket of lime beside a grass field.
Short notes run through the book, on the rules and how the game is played, the ball, the goal, the court and the kit and how they are made and cared for, and the history of the game: netball is played indoors in halls and outdoors on hard courts, cones set out in a zigzag train the sharp changes of direction the game is built on, the net is open at the bottom, so the ball drops straight through after a goal, and for decades many played in canvas plimsolls with thin, flat rubber soles.
Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a hardcover with the art printed on the case.
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