Softball in Australia

The game was first played in Australia in 1939, having been introduced to the country by Gordon Young of Canada, who at the time was the director of physical education in New South Wales.

[1][2] Prior to the Second World War, vigoro was one of the sports played by women in Australia.

[3] The game was introduced to a wider audience in 1942 by American nurses stationed in the country during the war.

In 1947, at the behest of Queensland, the first interstate championships were held in Brisbane, with the Victorians claiming victory.

[2] The national team has not secured as much funding as male dominated sports in Australia despite having performed better than some and having won major international competitions.

The championships occur every year, with hosting rights given to states in the order they were admitted to the Australian Women's Softball Council.

[1] The University of Melbourne required physical education students to learn about softball as part of the programme's curriculum.

This helped spur the inclusion of the sport in the curriculum at secondary schools and colleges around the state of Victoria.

[16] The 1965 victory was considered very impressive as they beat the Americans, who invented the game in 1887, to win the championship.

[5] The first softball World Series, called the Diamond International trophy, was hosted by Australia.

[5] In 1995, an estimated 200,000 children regularly played softball in organised school based games.

One such player was Joanne Lesiputty, born in 1966, who also represented Australia in a number of other sports including basketball and netball.

[1] In 1994, estimates put male participation in the sport at fifty-thousand regular competitors.