Sports History Alpha Index Index by Sport History Bits Forum ... Search Team Handball Table of Contents How It's Played Other Resources History Team handball is very popular in much of the world, but little known in North America. Its very name is confusing even to an American who knows quite a bit about sports. The modern game actually grew out of three sports that were developed, independently, in three different European countries: The Czech hazena , the Danish handbold , and the German Torball All three were based on soccer, but essentially replaced the foot with the hand, so that the ball could be advanced by batting or throwing, rather than by kicking. Hazena was being played by Slovak peoples as early as 1892; its rules were first codified in 1906, by a college professor. Handbold (the Danish word for handball) was developed in 1898 by a teacher, Holger Nielsen, as an alternative to soccer. In 1906, Nielsen revised the rules considerably and began organizing competitions outside the school at which he taught. Similarly, Torball was created in 1915 by a German gymnastics teacher, Max Heiden. | |
|
