Basketball's first game was 125 years ago today

MIES - Basketball players, coaches and fans should take a moment and reflect on the sport that they love because 125 years ago on Wednesday, the first game was played.

James Naismith invented the sport in 1891 when he was a teacher at the YMCA International Training School (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, and had the inaugural game on the 21st of December. What a game, or an attempt at a game, it turned out to be!

The legendary Naismith staged the first game at the YMCA with two teams of nine players each squaring off.

A soccer ball was used and players shot into a pair of peach baskets.

Naismith later admitted in an audio interview, one that was only discovered just over a year ago, that he'd made a mistake by not coming up with enough rules. The first game was too much of a rough-and-tumble affair.

"Well, after that first match, I was afraid they'd kill each other but they kept nagging me to let them play again so I made up so more rules." - James Naismith

"That's where I made my big mistake," he said. "The boys began tackling, kicking and punching in the clinches. They ended up in a free-for-all in the middle of the gym floor. Before I could pull them apart, one boy was knocked out, several of them had black eyes and one had a dislocated shoulder.

"It certainly was murder (the interviewer is heard laughing when Naismith says this).

"Well, after that first match, I was afraid they'd kill each other but they kept nagging me to let them play again so I made up so more rules. The most important one was that there should be no more running with the ball.

"That stopped tackling and slugging. We tried out the game with those rules and we didn't have one casualty. We had a fine, clean sport."

Such is the humble but great beginning of basketball, a sport that 125 years later is played and watched all over the world.

FIBA