Sociogenesis of Team Handball

       Possibly dating back to the Greek antiquity, Handball has been a long-standing fixture in the sporting work. Practiced predominantly within the European nations, Handball features two teams of seven attempting to get the ball inside a six-foot netted arc. Handball forbids the use of any equipment including gloves, helmets or pads—thus the title, Handball. According About.com on their comprehensive “Olympics” page, the game was introduced by the Germans at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. It was deemed a “demonstrative sport,” as was their right in being the host that year, but the game did not receive much support due to its previous lack of popularity, and the already-proven mastery by the Germans. Its first appearance as an Olympic sport was at the 1972 Munich games, where Yugoslavia stunned Romania in the gold medal match—cementing the game as an official Olympic sport.

       The origins of Team Handball, as previously mention where found in Greek society, as portrayed by the legendary poet Homer in The Odyssey—using a ball of purple yarn. It also had origins in Egypt, Greenland, and medieval Europe, but the games most direct ancestor is the German game called fangballspiel, which translates to “catch ball game.” Denmark’s Holger Nielsen and German physical education teacher Max Heiser are credited with sharpening the rules of the modern game of Handball in the early 1900’s. The most important change in the games rules came when the International Handball Association (est. 1946) switched the game from outdoors to indoors, most probably due to the snowy conditions of the more northern European nations. The IHA still is the official governing body of Team Handball.

        Although an Olympic sport, Team Handball is still slow to catch on in the US. Being that there are no major college programs for Handball, the amateur circuit has yet to produce an US Olympic team that can compete for a gold medal. This is most certainly due to its lack of national exposure, and the already established dominance of other super-sports in Football, Basketball, and Baseball. At the 2012 London games, France defeated Sweden 22-21 in the gold medal game, and Croatia defeated Hungary 33-26 in the bronze medal game. Both credited as excited matches, and hopefully a spot of brightness for the US to see in the excited game.

Colin Carmody