On this day 40 years ago, the NBL tipped off

On this day the 24th February in 1979 the first season of the best sports league in the world tipped off. Happy 40th NBL.

The first day featured the following matchups:

Glenelg Tigers 68-65 City of Sydney Astronauts
Brisbane Bullets 70-77 Canberra Cannons
Newcastle Falcons 62-78 Nunawading Spectres
Illawarra Hawks 91-88 St. Kilda Saints

I'm surprised the league haven't promoted this at all.

Also congratulations to Illawarra for being in the league continuously since the beginning, although if you're old school you know that they played in the NSW state league prior to this so predate the NBL.

Here's to another 40 years!

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Perthworld
Years ago

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Perthworld
Years ago

Actually the Illawarra Hawks 91-88 St. Kilda Saints game is from Round 2 but is the oldest footage available. If you find more or have information to share about the time period please do.

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Lovebroker
Years ago

40 years later and the Hawks have the the same attendance as 1979.

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Haz
Years ago

Im usually very critical of the Hawks and their constant struggles to get their act together off the court, but respect where its due, they've been remarkable in staying for so long, even moreso given their success on the court has been so-so and off the court they are always on the brink of folding.

Just the 1 championship, erratic playoff appearances throughout their history and fair few seasons down the bottom, yet they are still here. So well done to them for their longevity in a league littered with clubs that have folded. Amazing.

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Anonymous
Years ago

there's about 5 minutes every month where I think hey maybe perthworld is only 99% spud instead of 100% and this is those 5 minutes for february.
even though this thread was copied off something tweeted by statistican mark slocombe earlier this morning it is still worth repeating here on hoops so kudos for doing so.

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Perthworld
Years ago

I didn't copy it from anywhere - was browsing through 1979 season results earlier last week and noticed the anniversary of the starting date of Round 1 was near.

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Perthworld
Years ago