Interest in Handball After One Week of Rio 2016

The Rio Olympics are now a week old and a good time to analyse the interest in handball raised by the Games. A quick way to get a window on this is to analyse the Wikipedia views that national associations receive. As might be expected Olympic Sports in which Team GB is doing well which are also popular in the UK are gaining hundreds of hits per day. For example as was the case four years ago the British Cycling page has well over 100 hits per day and went over 450 with the first gold in the velodrome yesterday evening. Similarly the British Swimming page is averaging well over 100 hits per day, bolstered by success in the pool. But when we turn to handball and compare it with some of the other minority team ball games and some of the minority sport in which Team GB has done well, handball is gaining a great deal of interest.

The table below shows a selection of Wikipedia page views from the first week of the Rio Olympics taken from British and English governing body and national association pages (due to time Scottish, Welsh & Northern Irish data could not be analysed). It should be noted that England Fencing does not have a Wikipedia page and British Rowing also acts as the governing body for England. The data shows that page views of the England Handball and British Handball Wikipedia pages compare excellently against the other sports shown. In fact so far the only days on which the England Handball Wikipedia page has not had the most views of these pages are 7 August when Team GB Fencing almost won Bronze and British Fencing Association had 170 views and 11 August when Team GB Rowing won a silver and the British Rowing Wikipedia page had 88 views compared with 74 views for England Handball. So in total the two handball pages have had 639 views which is more than double any of the others shown apart from Rowing on 363.

Wikipedia National Association Page Views

As predicted in a previous post, 'Can Rio Give Handball Another Boost?', the exposure that handball is getting due to the organisation of the schedule is a great advantage. Those surfing through the options online of which sport to watch are as likely to encounter handball as any other sport since the programme is across the day and also throughout the games. There are some points in the evening when handball makes it on to the featured options and also the BBC Red Button. This was true yesterday evening between the Cycling finishing in the Velodrome and the Late Swimming session. In this period there were only five live sports and as a result Slovenia's defeat of Sweden was featured on the Rio 2016 landing page.

Now that the Athletics is starting and the Cyclists look to be hitting form it will be interesting to see if handball can maintain this level of views.

Sir Steve Redgrave and Handball

The EHA, the governing body of handball in England, has today reported that Sir Steve Redgrave has spoken in the Radio Times about how impressed he is with handball. In the report he mentions that he went to see handball during the Athens Olympics and was really impressed. What he appears to have forgotten is a little remembered regional sports programme made during the mid-1980s in which two towns played each other at a variety of sports. Now it may have been that the show never made it past the pilot. It certainly didn't survive for a second series if it was commissioned and would not have been shown nationally. Anyway, handball was one of the sports and Sir Steve was the celebrity sportsperson for one of the towns, it may have been Reading. Does anyone remember the name of the programme?

Can Rio Give Handball Another Boost?

The Rio Olympics are almost upon us and with it the four yearly chance for handball to grab the public’s attention and showcase what it has to offer. This opportunity was never greater than in 2012 when, as hosts, Team GB was permitted to field teams across the entire range of sports. Handball was one of the major beneficiaries of this when, for the first time, the men and women’s British teams were able to take part in a top level international competition. Handball made the most of this opportunity by gaining unprecedented publicity for the sport. Millions watched on the television, new clubs, such as Coventry, immediately sprang up around the country, the governing body had more hits on Wikipedia than any other except for cycling and even Sir Clive Woodward caught the bug, tweeting about the virtues of handball on more than one occasion, labelling handball as “a proven start in creating co-ordination” and expressing the view that handball should be adopted as a second sport by all of those playing team sports.

In the intervening years, between the 2012 and 2016 games, handball has had an uneven rise. Immediately after the London Olympics the governing body for handball in England, the EHA, reported a near quadrupling of participation over the period 2010-2012. However, this coincided with UK Sport withdrawing all funding for elite British handball leading to the closing of the senior international programme. At grassroots level the growth of the sport has been phenomenal with the EHA reporting school participation in England rising from 25 teams in 2010 to 285 in 2014 and over 900 in 2015. This was helped by £1.2 million funding received from Sport England for the period 2013-17.

The rapid expansion in the number of schools in England adopting handball has been aided by the sport’s recognition in GCSE PE. However, the attraction of handball to physical educators is not only for its novelty value and place in the curriculum; the sport is being adopted because of a variety of benefits that it brings. In an article published last month, ‘Spicing up your curriculum’ by Adolfo Ramos and Keri Esslinger, the writers describe handball as feeling fresh but that it integrates many principles of more traditional sports. In it they summarise some of these benefits, noting that handball develops basic skills and provides participants with a workout in which they may run up to three miles in a series of short bursts of energy over the period of an hour. In addition, they point out that the sport helps youngsters develop decision-making and problem solving and can even contribute to their appreciation of diversity since handball is popular across the globe and particularly in continental Europe. Add to these benefits the fact that handball is usually played indoors and so is rarely a victim of the weather and the relative ease and frequency with which scoring takes place compared with other popular team ball games and the attraction of introducing handball becomes apparent.

So, four years on from London, what position is handball in to exploit the potential boost of the Rio Olympics? There will be no British teams to follow this time around but even if funding had been available for full Team GB squads, they would not have made the progress required to qualify in such a short time frame. On the other hand, since handball is not starting from the relatively low awareness based of four years ago, more people may be encouraged to watch, having been introduced to it since 2012. A major drawback for handball has often been the size of court required; only a small proportion of sports halls in the UK are built to the dimensions required (40 by 20 metres). However, this year the EHA has introduced the ‘Try Handball’ initiative which has been designed to introduce more flexibility to the way that handball is played and importantly encourages play in more limited spaces. Importantly, the coaching base has also expanded so that when the Olympics have finished there will be more available to take advantage of any interest generated as well as many more teachers aware of what the sport has to offer. Handball will also benefit from being one of the few sports that takes place across the whole of the games and across the whole of the sporting day. Until the advent of the red button and the Internet we were lucky if we had more than the final 30 seconds of the final broadcast on TV. Also, it will be featured in the major holiday event I am Team GB on Saturday 27 August.

So, 6 to 21 August, the duration of the handball tournament in Rio, may well be the most important 16 days that British handball has had since London 2012 despite there being no British teams in the tournament. It remains to be seen if these Games will give the sport the boost it needs to grow even faster but given the wider participation, and the advances outlined, even a small proportion of the publicity handball attracted in 2012 should enable it to take advantage.

The End of Brentwood '72

An article from the Times of 20 September 1985 by Paul Harrison which explains why the reigning league and cup champions of the day, Brentwood '72, were unable to continue.

Some key moments in the history of British Handball from an article by Joshua Drake published in 2013.

Handball on TV

The 2012 Olympics were not the first occasion that handball had featured on domestic TV in the UK. As far back as the 1970s the sport was featured on the Saturday afternoon sports programmes Grandstand (BBC1) and World of Sport (ITV). In this cutting from the Guardian of 21 February 1976 the TV schedule shows a handball international between Great Britain and Poland is listed as starting at 1 o'clock. However, the feature was a short one with the News listed as starting at 1.10!

The match was played at Picketts Lock Sports Centre with the result Great Britain 11 - Poland 55.

GLSE Select's first ever game in 1981

In celebration of GD playing Ruislip in the Copper Box one year on from the Olympics, this post shows a very brief report of the first game played by the GLSE Select team on Saturday 30 May 1981. The team took on a visiting Swiss police team and went down by 34-17. The team line up shows four players from Ruislip Eagles and three from Great Dane. The report appeared in the first edition of the GLSE Handball News in October 1981 on page 13.

Cardinal Griffin School

Today is the school national finals for handball and one team taking part with a long tradition is the Cardinal Griffin School in Cannock. This photograph shows a press photograph from the under 15 final in 1982 when Cardinal Griffin defeated Woughton Campus 18-11.

 

The school, which has had a long association with the local club Olympia, were so strong back in the early 1980s that they finished 4th in the famous Teramo Tournament in Italy which was then the European Under-14 Championships in all but name.

1970s Scottish Action

This photo by Arthur Kinloch appeared in the Glasgow Herald on 11 December 1979. It shows Billy Hayburn (centre with the ball), who then played for Allander and Scotland U21, and two unnamed defenders.

Billy Hayburn

The Hull Handball League (Part 5)

This photograph appeared in the Hull Daily Mail along with a short interview with Ron Lister. It shows the presentations at the Hull Handball Association Dance in the early '60s which was held at the Beverley Baths.

In the interview Mr Lister explained that football referees had been recruited to learn the rules of handball and officiate in the league which took place over the summer. It was felt that it was an ideal sport for football and rugby players to play in the closed season.

As in a previous Hull Daily Mail article, Mr Lister goes on to explain that the first international to be played by Great Britain was against Holland in 1959 and that this was followed up a year later by an international against Germany. However, this report gives further details, in that it confirms that the Germany international was also played in Hull at the Costello Stadium which is now the KC Stadium.

Scotland - England Internationals

This is a short report from the Glasgow Herald of Monday 6 May 1985 about the Scotland versus England Handball internationals which had taken place on the weekend before.

Salford (Ladies) v Ruislip (Ladies) 19 December 1983

This post is a short report from a match played 30 years ago between the Salford Ladies Handball Team and the Ruislip Ladies Handball Team who were known at the time by the sponsor name of Robert Jenkins Systems Handball. The report is from a London Association newsletter hence the lack of mention of the Salford players.

The game was a National League fixture which threw off at 4.30pm. The teams were lead out by Salford Majorettes and Ruislips' starting seven were

Sue Roberts (GK)
Dawn Bellis
Donna Anderson
Kim Walker
Janet Nichols
Christine Fitzgerald
Melanie Chowns

Fitzgerald opened the scoring for Ruislip and the first half found them exploiting a weak Salford defence but not being able to turn the superiority into the advantage that it should have been. When half-time came Ruislip were leading by six goals to three. The spectators were entertained at half-time by the Salford Majorettes who were a group of mainly 9 to 10 year olds. The second half continued much the same as the first with Ruislip continuing to dominate while playing in a relaxed manor throughout. While the team as a whole played sufficiently well, special mention goes to Sue Roberts in goal who save four penalties. The game ended in a 12-6 victory to the Londoners.

Ruislip Eagles

Graphite (Ruislip) Eagles Club badge from the 70s

The club website states the following: 

Ruislip Eagles Handball Club was formed in 1970 when they were based in the old South Ruislip Leisure centre. The Club have previously been known as Graphite Eagles (when sponsored by Graphite Equipment Ltd) and Robert Jenkins (Graphite were acquired by Robert Jenkins Systems and the name changed as a result of this).

The men’s and women’s teams were started and coached by Bill Holderness, a GB goalkeeper. The teams were largely made up of British players but gradually more and more overseas players joined the club and brought new skills and experience.

The club enjoyed a successful spell through the 1980s when many of their players were picked for the national team and the women won the league on several occasions alongside fierce rivals Wakefield.

The men also were involved with great competition with Brentwood and Liverpool but it was the women’s team who enjoyed the greater success. In 1982 the women became the 1st British team to win a match in a European Cup, beating the Belgian champions over two legs.

Both men’s and women’s teams have an international flavour with many nationalities playing in both teams.

The Hull Handball League (Part 4): Possibly the oldest club photo

As previously reported in Part 2 Crawford Sports were the Hull handball league champions in 1961. This photograph taken from the Hull Daily Mail shows the Crawford team lined up as follows: back row Roy Marshall, George Gardiner, Ray Riley, George Nesfield, Ray Sissons and Barry Fuller; front row Syd Cowan, Col Raper, George Pougher, Ronnie Bray and Terry O'Neill. The team took the name of the club sponsor Crawford Sports which was a sports shop based in East Hull.

Unless anyone knows of an older club photo of a British handball team photograph then this photo of Crawford Sports HC is the oldest one, albeit of a team that played the 11 a-side version of the game.

Crawford Sports HC

Coventry Handball Club

Coventry Handball Club is shaping up to be one of the 'Legacies of the Olympics' and Thursday is going to be the first occasion on which the club meets to train. It was reported on the BBC earlier today that this was Coventry's first ever club but records show that a club going by the name of Coventry made a brief appearance in organised leagues around 30 years ago.

The main source of information comes from the Midland Handball Association's handbook published in 1982. It lists the member clubs as Leicester Computers, Coventry, Leicester '73, Milton Keynes 1980, Olympia (Cannock), Salford and John Quinn Sheffield. Each club has details of officials, colours, match times and a brief history.

The entry for Coventry shows that the club had previously been known as Nuneaton Tech and Recreation Nuneation and that prominent club members were Frank Dillon, Mick Darlison and Chris Leadbetter. It records the home base as Coventry SC in Fairfax Street and club colours as white shirts, blue shorts (first choice), orange shirts, blue shorts (second choice).

The history section explains that the club could trace its roots to Nuneaton Tech, a club which had been founder members of the English National League and places its establishment as 1975 at the latest. In 1977 a 'B' team (Nuneaton Newdegate) was formed to play in the lower league. The team eventually broke away from Tech after sports centres were opened at Etone and Jubilee and the club was renamed Recreation Nuneaton. In 1980 Recreation won the English Second Division but they were apparently denied promotion due to reorganization of the leagues meaning that all teams had to go through regional qualifying. The final National League table for 1980/81 shows that the team finished sixth out of seven in a league which was won convincingly by Brentwood '72.

The Midland's Handbook then explains that the club moved to Coventry following a friendly against a Scottish team called Linwood and that the club started 1981/82 very well but that due to rule infringements had points deducted. They also went out of the British Cup in the first round losing 26-24 to Great Dane London. The Midland Directory was introduced for the 1982/83 season and finishes the piece on Coventry by saying that the club resigned its place in the National League position in 1982 to join the Midland League. This is verified by BHA publications which show Coventry in mid-table after six games of the '81/82 season but as not being in the league on publication of the final table.

The 1982/83 season proved to be the last for the club and shows that there may have still bee problems as records from the season show that Coventry were in the Midland League but the final standing only show four teams (Milton Keynes 1980, Olympia, Salford and John Quinn Sheffield). Despite this, the records show that Coventry were involved in an exciting cup tie in the first round of the British Cup. Playing Kirkby Select, a National League team, Coventry tied the game 20-20. Following extra time the game was still level at 22-22. It took a further period of extra-time for Kirkby to defeat Coventry 24-23.

1983 proved to be Coventry's final year. It is recorded in the November 1983 edition of the BHA publication 'Word is...' that the club came about from the 'considerable work done by Frank Dillion' and that following Frank's move to Saudi Arabia the club had folded.

So, 30 years after the former club embarked on its last season, the new club is about to embark on the first of what will hopefully be many.

Good luck Coventry Handball Club! Click to find out more about the new club.

The Hull Handball League (Part 3) The first ever GB team

Hull was not only the location of the first handball league in Britain; it was also where the first ever Great Britain representative team played. The status of this representation is not clear; on the one hand there was no official Handball Association but on the other hand the Hull league was recognized by the IHF. It is reported by the Hull Daily Mail that Great Britain played Holland on Sunday 28 June 1959 at the Costello Stadium in West Hull.

Syd Cowan, who played in the game, explained that the Dutch were much better but that the score was kept down by the brilliant goalkeeping of Billy Bly. Cowan said "I played in this game and have one of the commemorative plaques. The Dutch players handled the ball and moved it quicker than us and ran into open spaces. When they shot at goal they took the ball on the move and leaped and hurled the ball down from about nine feet high - no wonder Billy looked a bit downcast towards the end".

One of the officials on the day, Ron Lister, explained that a further international took place, this time against Germany in 1960 and Cowan adds that the team also traveled to Germany to play a team from Freiburg. The team which played Freiburg are lined up in the poor quality photograph below which, was published in the Hull Daily Mail. The photograph, dated August 1960, is almost certainly the oldest in existence of a handball team in Britain.

A page from the programme of the international in 1959 (shown below) confirms that the game played in Hull 50 years ago was in fact the 11-a-side version of handball. There is not much footage of this version of handball but this short clip shows a game between East Germany and Austria from the same period.

A page from the 1959 Great Britain - Holland programme

The Hull Handball League 1958-62 (part 2)

Sir Clive Woodward recently tweeted that handball is the ideal second sport for football and rugby teams. Well the truth is that for a few years around 50 years ago it was ... in Hull.

In an article published in the Hull Daily Mail on 31 March 2003 a former player, Syd Cowan reflected on the years that Hull had had its own handball league, made a point of the variety of sports represented. Syd himself was a Rugby League player but he also referred to rugby union players, the boxer Wally Mays and the netball player Pat Hamblyn. However, he explained that handball attracted "many local and professional footballers" because it was ideal for maintaining fitness over the summer months. Two names of footballers he mention are the Hull City players Frank Harrison and goalkeeper Billy Bly.

Handball in Hull lasted for just four years. It is clear that it was introduced in 1958 by Dr Seewald while Syd reports that the Division One Shield was last contested in 1962 after which "sadly the game petered out." There is no mention of any silverware in 1958 which is not surprising given the fact that it had only just been introduced however in 1959 a tournament was organised with a team by the name of Asbestos winning the trophy. In 1961 the full league was organised and the Shield winners were Crawfords Sports. The second and final year of the league saw Hull Boys Club win the Shield.

The Hull Handball League 1958-62 (part 1)

The British Handball Association was founded in Liverpool in 1967, however, a decade before this records show that a handball league had been recognised by the IHF in Britain. A small history lesson published in Handball News around 1980 (see below) shows an extract from the IHF handbook page 123 of September 1960 listing the existence of a handball league being played in Hull in 1960. The contact is Dr L M Seewald who had introduced handball to Hull during 1958, Dr Seewald was also the author of the 24 page book 'Continental Handball: Official international rules' which was also published in 1958. 

Extract from the International Handball Federation handbook September 1960 which appeared in Handball News from around 1980.

Tom Smith former Brentwood keeper interviewed last year

An article published last year in the Brentwood Gazette in which Brentwood '72 goalkeeper of the 1970s and 1980s Tom Smith talks about his time playing and coaching. Here is the Link

Governing body hits on Wikipedia

How do you measure the level of interested generated by different sports during the Olympics? I'm sure MORI or IPOS are being commissioned to carry out surveys to measure people's attitudes but a crude insight into the level of interested is whether people can be bothered to find out a bit more and maybe investigate the governing bodies of sports. One method by which people do this is to search Wikipedia. Fortunately, data is available for the number of hits a Wikipedia page receives each day and this has today been analysed to compare the 30 day period since 15 July. It should first be noted that a few governing bodies still do not have Wikipedia pages e.g. Weightlifting and others have governing bodies which do not exist at a British level e.g. Badminton and Football.

So which British governing body has received the most hits in the past 30 days? With 11,897 hits cycling wins hands down, although it needs to be remembered that some of the hits will have resulted from the exceptional performance of British cyclists during the Tour de France. So we move on the the silver medal and ... Yes! The page British Handball Association with 3,453 views beats UK Athletics (3,153), British Swimming (2269) and British rowing (2173).

A little like the claims that Scotland and Yorkshire make about where they would come in the medal table, England Handball would have been fourth with 2459. Finally, Scottish Handball (568) had more views than the British governing body pages for five other Olympic sports.