TEAM HANDBALL
From: SportsKnowHow.com
Team handball is an exciting sport to watch and exhilarating to play. Sometimes described as soccer with
your hands, it offers fast and continuous play involving running, throwing, catching and jumping.
Team handball (also sometimes called field handball, Borden Ball, European handball, or Olympic
handball) is a team sport, where the teams attempt to pass a ball to each other and to throw it into the
opposition's goal.
The two teams consist of seven players (including one goalkeeper) on each team. The goal that is used is
similar to a soccer goal, and the court slightly larger than a basketball court.
As the name suggests, the ball is always transferred with the player's hands rather than with their feet,
so kicking the ball is an illegal move.
The ball is a little smaller than a soccer ball which allows players to hold and pass while only using one
hand (though using both hands is allowed).
Early Origins of Team Handball
Although it has only been played internationally since the 1920s, the origins of team handball go back a
long way. In fact, it is thought to have developed from some of the oldest games the human race has
ever enjoyed. Most sports have their origins in popular games that were played for fun throughout
history, and there can be nothing that has been more universally played than various types of ball
games. Even now in our digital age, kids and adults alike cannot replace the enjoyment they get from
games and sports involving simply kicking or throwing a ball.
Variations on the game of handball have been played all over the world for thousands of years.
Historians argue that handball or games from which it developed are more likely to have been played
than soccer would have been among early peoples, as human beings have always been better at
manipulating objects with their hands rather than with their feet.
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TEAM HANDBALL
From: SportsKnowHow.com
Roman and Egyptian ties to Handball?
The origins of the game are in fact likely to date from ancient Greek and Roman times. The ancient
Greeks played a similar game called urania, from which handball may have been eventually derived.
Noted in Homer's Odyssey, urania involved the use of a ball made of purple wool.
In Rome, they played Harpaston, a game involving throwing a ball over a line. Historical evidence
indicates that games not unlike handball were also played by the Inuit on Greenland and as far afield as
Ancient Africa, mostly in Egypt.
There are drawings of Egyptians playing handball decorating the five thousand year old tombs at
Saqqara in Egypt, which depict girls in pairs playing the game. Egyptian handballs were made of a leather
skin stuffed with plant fibers so that they remained both light and durable.
European Handball Origins:
Ball games were equally popular in Europe. The history of European handball is well documented. In
medieval Germany, a sport, known as fussballspiel, translates as "catch ball game." During the Middle
Ages in France, a game known as "jeux de paume" (palm play) was popular with rich and poor alike. The
ball was made out of pieces of tightly-rolled material which were sewn together, and as the game
changed over time, gloves were worn to allow the participants to hit the ball with more force. This was
probably a precursor of tennis - the competitors started to use bigger and bigger gloves, and then items
which can be considered to have been early tennis rackets.
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TEAM HANDBALL
From: SportsKnowHow.com
Beginnings in North America:
In America, handball is more than three thousand years old, and is thought to have originated in Mexico.
Central America has many archaeological sites where handball players are depicted on pieces of pottery,
in sculpture, and on wall paintings, showing that this sport was an important pastime for the people
who inhabited the area at that time.
Modern Handball:
In the 19th century, there were many similar games to handball being played in various parts of Europe,
from haandbold in Denmark to gandbol in Ukraine. Denmark is widely thought to be the birthplace of
modern handball.
The game, as we think of it today, began at the end of the century in northern Europe. The rules were
drawn up by a Danish gym teacher called Holger Nielsen in 1989, and a second set of rules superseded
these in 1917. This second set of rules was created by Max Heiser, Karl Schelenz and Erich Konigh from
Germany. After 1919, the rules were amended and improved by Karl Schelenz, and his rules were the
first to be used for an international game. The first men's game, between Germany and Belgium, was
played in 1925, and the first game for women took place in 1930 between Germany and Austria.
The International Handball Federation (IHF)
The International Amateur Handball Federation came into being in 1928; in 1946, it was replaced by the
International Handball Federation, which is the sport's world governing body today. The founding
members included France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. The
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TEAM HANDBALL
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IHF which took the place of the International Amateur Handball Federation (IAHF) now has nearly 170
members and governs about 795,000 teams throughout the world.
How the Game of Handball Has Developed
The history of Borden Ball, or handball, as it is more popularly known, shows that the sport developed
from some important modifications made in those early years. Perhaps, most crucial was the move of
the sport from outdoors to indoor playing arenas.
Initially 11-strong teams had played field handball outside on almost full size turf fields, but due to the
cold and wintry weather in Scandinavia where the sport was very popular, it was scaled down to an
indoor game with teams of 7 players.
This indoor version of handball became popular, and it is this sport that is played at the Olympics today.
Recently a new version of handball has emerged which is played outdoors on the sandy beaches and is
thus called beach handball. The IHF have now recognized this variety of the sport, and it has its own
formal rules.
Handball and the Olympics
For the first time at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, the Germans chose to showcase Team Handball as a
demonstration sport. Popular only in Europe, handball was not played again until the Munich Olympics
in 1972. At that time, it moved indoors and men played the game as an official Olympic sport.
Women's handball was added to the program of events in 1976 in Montreal and has been played in
every summer Olympics since then.
The London 2012 Olympic Games saw France become the first country ever to retain the men's handball
title, with their 22-21 defeat of Sweden in the final. Sweden took the silver medal and the bronze went
to Croatia. In the women's handball games, Norway took gold, Montenegro silver, and Spain was
awarded the bronze medal.
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TEAM HANDBALL
From: SportsKnowHow.com
Handball Championships
The world's first handball world championship took place in Berlin over two days in February 1938.
Germany, Austria, Denmark and Sweden participated, with Germany winning. Around 18,000 spectators
attended. The Germans also won the first field handball world championship that summer. Both
championships were organized by the IAHF on the occasion of its ten-year anniversary.
Handball is now widely played all over the world, with an estimated 7 million players registered with a
club.
Top Handball Players
Mikkel Hansen is a Danish player. At only 23 years old, he was voted the best handballer in the world in
2011 by the International Handball Federation. Thought to be a star in the making with an amazing
talent, he scored an impossible goal against Russia at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, winning the game. He
was rewarded with a contract with FC Barcelona. Mikkel Hansen is also European Champion with the
Danish national team. In March 2012, he was awarded the IHF World Player of the Year award.
Nicknamed "The Wall" for obvious reasons, Thierry Omeyer is a French handball goalkeeper, performing
94 saves in 8 matches during the London 2012 Olympics. Starting to play handball at age 9, he has been
in the French national team since 1999 and has won all the major titles. He has been the world
champion three times, the European champion twice and the Olympic champion twice. Probably the
best handball goalkeeper of all time, he is the third goalkeeper to be named best player in the world by
the International Handball Federation.
Handball in America
Interestingly, handball has never really taken off in America, which has shown a distinct lack of
competitiveness against the European countries, despite the American predilection for catching balls,
jumping and running, all things that they are usually successful at in sport. It is one of the few events the
Americans have never achieved medals in during the summer Olympics (the other sports being the
Triathlon, Badminton, and table tennis). Yet handball is fast paced, high scoring, and is played indoors,
so why has it not caught on in the USA? This lack of popularity could simply be down to an unsuitable
sporting infrastructure in America as it is geared up much better for basketball, with hardly any handball
courts in existence.
Top Ten Countries in Handball
Germany, Russia, Denmark, Serbia, Hungary, Sweden, Romania, France, Spain, South Korea
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