First established as Poverty Bay Basketball Association in August 1928 by Christine Miller, Christine Corkery and Bertha Cole. Games had played on Thursdays and Saturdays at the St Marys and Central School courts, but after affiliation to the national body (1928), the above ladies set about obtaining the site in Victoria Domain, which is where our centre still sits today. The first clubhouse was an abandoned Edison battery tram.

Over the years changes were seen at the Victoria Domain site including an increase in number of courts.  The original downstairs of the pavilion opened in July 1954, with an extension opened in August 1968, including the addition of the upstairs floor.

Secondary and Senior netball played at the Victoria Domain site, while primary "kiwi" netball played across the road at the St Marys School courts. Once St Marys school moved site, all games played at Victoria Domain.

In 2000 the association moved from a committee to board structure set up, and renamed the entity to it's current name, Gisborne Netball Centre (GNC).

In 2017 GDC started their Community Facility Strategy which GNC took part in. Many codes were looking at potentials to hub and share facilities. The deterioration of our netball facility led to the willingness to look at new options. A working group with netball, tennis, squash and the YMCA had a plan drafted for a combined hub on Victoria Domain. This was adopted by the GDC facility group so the formation of the Victoria Sport & Recreation Hub board was underway to develop this project.

2024 looks to be the last season on the site as it has been since the inception. Stage 1 of the project will see the courts and pavilion demolished, with courts realigned and resurfaced, and a temporary building to be our base until the other stages of redevelopment are completed.​​​​​​​

Tournament Hosting:

The first Kathleen Henderson Memorial Tournament was held in 1942, which was open to both representative and club teams. The tournament attracted teams from Hastings and Wairoa as well as local entries. By 1948 this had grown to be the pinnacle event of the netball calendar and attracted 55 teams from Bay of Plenty, East Coast and Hawkes Bay.

The winter timeframe eventually became too hard as netball seasons got busier, so the tournament moved to a pre-season timeframe circa 2000. 

1933 - first hosted the NZ Tournament

1956 - National Tournament

1994 - Coca-Cola Age Group Champs (U21 and U19)

Aotearoa Maori National Tournaments - 1996, 2006, 2016

​​​​​​​Competition Changes:

1989 the Premier Grade was introduced. The inaugural year had 3 teams tied for 1st place on points. In 2003 a  finals format was introduced for our Premier Grade for the first time.

Social Netball became a hit, with mixed teams a popular spring/summer version of the game. We averaged around 30 teams in the Twilight League, however post covid numbers leapt and we peaked at 49 teams. In 2016 we launched our first Beach Netball League with 10 teams, playing games at the Churchill Park Sandtrack.

2019 was our first Men's League with games playing in the YMCA stadium. 6 teams played in the league won by Uawa.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Unusual interruptions:

2020 was an unusual season with CoVid-19 affecting all aspects of play. We had a shortened season start in June and play until end of September. All Primary, Intermediate and Secondary games played in Term 3 only. Our numbers remained steady, but our Social Twilight saw a huge increase to 42 teams as our community was keen to get out there having fun together.

2023 had us all familiar with the term Weather Event. In the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle, we had to postpone the start of our season, and faced a season with many challenges.