Sunday, 25 January 2009

Postcard from Men's World Championships 1982 in Germany


This is a short post which again relates to the World Championships in 1982. It shows a copy of a postcard sent from the Yugoslav national team and Goran Gazivoda to the readers of GLSE Handball News and Paul Bray (editor). It appeared in the April 1982 edition (3rd edition) at the foot of the final page. The postcard is signed by the players and is dated 7th March 1982; the day on which the final took place with the postmark showing 8th March 1982. Above the copy is short comment by Paul Bray offering thanks for the card and congratulations on the team's performance (they lost the final to the Soviet Union).

Saturday, 24 January 2009

Men's World Championships 1982 in Germany


Since we are in the midst of the current World Championships in Croatia this post shows a report on the 1982 final taken from an issue of Handball News published by the BHA. The issue consists of 8 A4 pages but carries no information as to the number or date of issue, however, since it reports on the 1982 Championships then it was probably published around the beginning April of '82 (page 8 which is not shown carries BHA Cup results from March 21st 1982). The report takes up the first two and a half pages of the newsletter. The illustration on the first page shows 'Handy' the Championship mascot, who bears a striking resemblance to Bugs Bunny. The only other illustration is a photo of the Men's British National team (page 3) which relates to reports elsewhere in the newsletter on the team's participation in the Group C World Championships. Unfortunately the photo has neither a title nor a caption and probably illustrates that the audience for such a newsletter, pre-Internet, would have all been aware that they weren't the Soviets! Having said that the great majority of those in the photo had been the best in Britain for a number of years and continued to excel at the top level for many years after.

Wednesday, 21 January 2009

East Kilbride Club Magazine 1980

This post shows a few pages from the East Kilbride club magazine: GOAL. This sample is from issue 2 of April 1980. The magazine lasted for at least 4 issues (Does anyone know how many in total?) was printed in black and white with 20 A5 pages and contained short articles by club members, player profiles, puzzle pages and plenty of stats. The pages shown here are the front cover, the back cover and centre pages. The issue was late in the season and the back cover shows the league results for the ladies team (W6, D1, L2), gents 1st team (W10, L1) and gents 2nd team (W1, D1, L6). The centre pages show an article on the club's junior section and the goal scoring statistics for the season. Halfway down the gent's list a young A. McCoist is credited with 17 goals.

Monday, 19 January 2009

Now Magazine Article 1979

Now magazine is a celebrity gossip magazine but in 1979 an entirely different magazine had the same title. It was short lived only lasting for a couple of years; a glossy news magazine which was similar to the Economist. On 5th October 1979 it carried this short article about British Handball. It was published to coincide with the screening on BBC's Grandstand of a match between a British League team and the German national team. The accompanying photo shows Germany's Horst Spengler shooting for goal. Former Great Britain and Brentwood 72 coach Goran Gazivoda is the Britain number 4.

Does anyone have any memories of this game (Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go with the rest of my team to watch as I had school the next day)? Who are the other two GB players in shot?