KORFBALL was created in the Netherlands, and is similar to both basketball and netball with the aim being to score in net-less hoops at each end of the court.
A Korfball team consists of four women and four men, with players only being allowed to mark players the same gender as them.
The game is seen as a truly gender equal sport due to its structure and philosophy as the rules do not allow physical strength to dominate the game.
The sport was created in 1901 by Dutch school teacher Nico Broekhuysen who wanted to create a sport that was played by men and women as equals.
Later, the International Korfball Federation (IKF) was founded in 1933 in Antwerp, Belgium.
The IKF World Championships were founded in 1978 and have taken place every four years since, with the Netherlands winning all bar one competition in 1991 when Belgium were crowned champions.
The sport is now played in 69 countries across the world having expanded from its birth place in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands is now home to over 500 Korfball clubs and over 90,000 registered players.
In the UK there are 70 Korfball clubs, alongside 30 university sides with just over 6,000 players competing.
Southampton have their very own Korfball team, the Southampton Spartans.
Formed in December 2011, the club now has four competitive teams playing in England with their first and second team playing in the Southern Counties Korfball league one.
In 2019, the club won the Chris Carter Cup as well as qualifying to play at the Copper box arena through coming second in the Promo league.
