Now in many cases we have such teams as the Magpies or the Tigers and stacks of other names and at least some of us have to stop to think who those names represent.

I noticed some publicity in recent weeks from city newspaper sports writers such as Peter FitzSimons and Simon Burke commenting on the changes in the various "football" codes. At least one of them, I think FitzSimons, asked "who are the Cheetahs?" I could add any number of other names. Who are the Cheetahs? Who are the Bulls? Who are the Hurricanes? Who do they represent? How can they expect to develop a following among people if the people don't know who they are?

Anyway, as a long time basketball enthusiast I sat down to watch the women's grand final between Bendigo Spirit and Townsville Fire, played in a packed stadium at Bendigo. It was an enthralling match and the home side won, which always goes down well.

Years ago, the sport of netball was commonly known as basketball.

As a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald in the 1960s I had no end of trouble convincing the sports people to acknowledge there was a difference between netball and women's basketball. They slowly came around, but still each week I was asked something like "is that men's rules basketball or women's rules basketball?"

The fact that many games were played at night hindered attempts at publicity in the next day's paper.

But I want to say something about the word "spirit".

Here is a word that dates back to at least 1250, well before the current crop of women's basketballers was born.

In 1250 a publication called The Story of Genesis and Exodus, after saying that God made Adam, talked about "a spirit full of wit and sckil". I think that was the spelling for skill.

My big dictionary has several pages covering spirit, many of the explanations having religious significance.

The English word comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning breath, but I understand it can also mean things like courage and vigour.

Wallace Simpson said that for a gallant spirit there could never be defeat.

The use of the word for liquor seems to have come several hundred years later.

A Bendigo Advertiser report on the Bendigo Spirit's win said the Spirit put an exclamation mark on a superb season.

The coach and one of the star players in that basketball grand final had the name Harrower. My big dictionary says the word harrower describes "a spoiler" and "a bid of prey". A quote from Anthony Trollope in 1862 said "she was prepared for war and her spirit was hot within her".

The dictionary said harrowing could be "very painful".

That proved to be about right.