{"id":117742,"date":"2025-11-28T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/?p=117742"},"modified":"2025-11-26T23:03:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T12:03:24","slug":"nine-decades-of-ballarat-badminton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/sport\/nine-decades-of-ballarat-badminton\/","title":{"rendered":"Nine decades of Ballarat badminton"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE Ballarat Badminton Association will be celebrating its ninetieth anniversary with a birthday party this weekend.<\/p>\n

The event will be held on Sunday 30 November from 11am until 3pm at Ballarat Badminton Stadium, Dowling Street, Wendouree.<\/p>\n

Community members are invited to come along, share memories, and have a hit, with organisers expecting around 200 past and present players.<\/p>\n

“So much has changed in the world in the last 90 years and a badminton racquet is a perfect example of that,” Ballarat Badminton Association manager Rhonda Cator said.<\/p>\n

“It was wood and steel and heavy, and now they’re carbon and 75 grams.”<\/p>\n

The Ballarat Badminton Association was formed in 1935 when the sport was played in halls throughout the region.<\/p>\n

“It was a group of clubs that got together to form an association and those clubs played around Ballarat and district in church halls and in any building they could fit a badminton court in,” Ms Cator said.<\/p>\n

“A lot of the time they couldn’t fit the court in, so they geometrically aligned the lines up the wall.”<\/p>\n

\"\"
Looking back: Ballarat Badminton Association president Neil Henderson and manager Rhonda Cator. Photo: MIRIAM LITWIN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Ken Kay Ballarat Badminton Stadium opened in March 1976.<\/p>\n

Ms Cator said the success of the Ballarat Badminton Association is due to its evolution, with the organisation expanding to offer pickleball and curling. It has about 725 members.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s been able to move with the times, for example when the association moved into the stadium, it took away a lot of the home and away fixtures, so it was coming up with different ways to create that,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We’re offering pickleball and curling especially to fill in the daytime gaps, which has been very successful and that’s created a need and a want for badminton courts.”<\/p>\n

For more information about the celebration or to RSVP email ballaratbaddy@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE Ballarat Badminton Association will be celebrating its ninetieth anniversary with a birthday party this weekend. The event will be held on Sunday 30 November from 11am until 3pm at Ballarat Badminton Stadium, Dowling Street, Wendouree. Community members are invited to come along, share memories, and have a hit, with organisers expecting around 200 past […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":117748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-117742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNine decades of Ballarat badminton - Ballarat Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ballarat Badminton Association marks its ninetieth anniversary this weekend with a community celebration and memories shared.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/sport\/nine-decades-of-ballarat-badminton\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nine decades of Ballarat badminton - 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