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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 May - 2 June 1999 Issue No. 431 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 May - 2 June 1999 Issue No. 431
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Living Features Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Annals of the Men's World Handball Championships
Handball has a long history. Records attest that sports similar to what is now known as handball have been practised since ancient times in all parts of the world, including Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and China. The history of handball as a competitive sport comprises two main parts: as an 11-player sport of German origin and as a seven-player game born in Denmark.
Handball was played earlier than most people think, as it was played in ancient days.
Modern handball was first played towards the end of the 19th century. For example, one such game was played in the Danish town of Nyborg in 1897.
The real impulses emanated from Denmark, Germany and Sweden. The founding fathers of field handball were probably German physical education experts who gained recognition for field handball as a separate sport at the turn of the century, based on the game of "raffball" (snatch ball).
In Sweden, it was G Wallstrom who introduced his country to a certain sport called "handball" in 1910.
Formed in 1946, the first International Handball Federation
Two years later, a German called Hirschmann, who was the secretary-general of the Association Internationale de Football, encouraged the spread of field handball. In 1917, Max Heiser drew up the first set of rules for the game. In 1919, Karl Schelenz, a Berlin sports teacher, launched this form of handball, which was played on a full-size outdoor pitch, in Europe. He later improved the rules and is now generally recognised as one of the founding fathers of field handball. In 1926, at a meeting held in The Hague, the Congress of the International Amateur Athletics Federation nominated a committee to draw up international rules for field handball.
In 1928, the International Amateur Handball Federation (IAHF) was set up during the Amsterdam Olympic Games. One founding member was Avery Brundage, an American who was later chairman of the International Olympic Committee. By 1936, the IAHF comprised 23 member countries and gained worldwide prominence for the first time when a field handball competition took place during the Berlin Olympic Games.
The final of the 1961 World Championship in Dortmund
In 1938, the first field handball world championship was played in Germany.
In 1946, at the initiative and invitation of Denmark and Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland founded the International Handball Federation (IHF). The IHF's official birthday is 11 July.
Five months after the IHF was founded, the first official international match was played under its aegis, with Sweden beating Denmark 9-7 in Gothenburg on 6 November, 1946. In those days, the classic eleven-a-side outdoor game of field handball, so dear to the central Europeans, and the still-up-and-coming sport of seven-a-side handball, played indoors on a small court the form preferred in Scandinavia, were equally popular. Both disciplines had their fans: in 1955, 50,000 spectators watched the final of the field handball World Championships between Germany and Switzerland (25-13) in Berlin, but the indoor final between Sweden and Czechoslovakia in East Berlin in 1958, which ended 22-12, was also played in a packed hall in front of 6,500 spectators. The dominating nations at that time were Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Denmark.
The first World Championship took place in Germany in 1938, involving 10 teams from Europe. Throughout their history, the World Championships were dominated by teams from the former Soviet Union and Germany, with Romania and Yugoslavia third and fourth in this hall of fame.
Over the years, the organisation of the World Championships has changed. Initially, there were group games in both the preliminary and main rounds, but more recently a ruthless knockout system has been applied after the preliminary round, leaving 50 per cent of the teams out in the cold before the final.
