British men's national handball team

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The British men's national handball team is the selection team of the British Handball Association (BHA) and represents the United Kingdom in international men's handball tournaments .

background

Handball is largely unknown in the motherland of football . In English, handball is usually understood to mean games such as Irish handball or American handball . However, these are setback games that are more similar to squash . It is named after the ball is played against the walls by hand . In contrast to this, handball is referred to as Team Handball or Olympic Handball in Great Britain, similar to the USA .

When London won the 2012 Olympic Games on July 6, 2005 , and Great Britain, as the host country, was automatically qualified for participation in the tournament, intensive activities began to re-establish the British national handball team.

history

There was already a British men's national team in the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1976 and 1988 she took part in the C-WM six times . These tournaments served as pre-qualifications for the World Cup and Olympic qualification tournaments ( B-WM ). The British lost 29 out of a total of 30 games and only once did not come last in this competition. The only victory came in 1984 with a 21:19 against the selection of the Faroe Islands . After the abolition of the promotion and relegation system with A, B and C world championships, the British national team no longer appeared and from then on no longer took part in the qualifying rounds for major tournaments. The record national player is Mick Hegarty with 55 appearances to date .

Building the new national team

For the period from 2006 to 2009, the BHA was given a budget of 3 million pounds sterling , which corresponds to about 4.3 million euros, to build a national team. A three-stage plan was brought into being.

  1. The worldwide search for handball players of British descent began immediately.
  2. Handball has been integrated into the curriculum in schools.
  3. The Danish Handball Federation (DHF) was involved in the development project.

In September 2006 8 men (and 3 women) were selected to train at Danish handball academies in Aarhus and Oure .

A first selection process began in December 2006 with 50 potential candidates, some of whom were recruited from other, non-Olympic sports such as rugby and netball . After various training camps, 3 candidates remained. These 3 plus 6 men, who were already active in Denmark in the 2006/2007 season, were selected (together with 4 women) in August 2007 to be promoted at the Aarhus handball academy.

In a second selection process in May 2007 in Nottingham, a total of 4,800 British people participated in the “Sporting Giants” eliminations (part of the “Talent ID program”). The only criteria for participation were height, which had to be at least 1.90 meters for men, interest in sport and the shared dream of the five rings.

This second phase of the “Sporting Giants TID program” began with 180 male candidates, 16 of whom were ultimately selected for a training camp in Sheffield in October 2007.

As a result of the “Sporting Giants TID program”, 12 men (and 3 women) were selected for further funding in Sheffield or Aarhus in January 2008.

A total of 30 places were available in the support program in Denmark in the 2007/2008 season, each for 15 men and women.

Other players, some of whom were already active in handball before the selection process, are spread across Europe and play in more or less high-class leagues.

The head coach of the British men's national handball team has been the Dane Carsten Albrektsen since 2007 . General Manager of the British Handball Association has been Paul Goodwin since September 3, 2007. BHA chairman is Stevie Neilson. In February 2009 the position of head coach was advertised again. A few weeks later, Dragan Djukic was introduced as the new head coach.

In Germany, a goalkeeper for the national team was initially found in Craig Smith, who played for the German top division club Spfr. Hamborn 07. Since January 2008 Smith has been playing for the HSG Vennikel / Rumeln-Kaldenhausen club.

In February 2009, the Danish training camp for national players Cirian Williams, Chris McDermott, Merlin Braithwaite, Sebastian Prieto, Dan Mc Millan and Chris Mohr was ended for financial reasons. The players were transferred to the German Bundesliga club TUSEM Essen in order to get match practice in a professional league.

In spring 2011, the British Olympic Association finally made the decision that the team would take part in the 2012 Olympic Games in London. In the Olympic tournament, the British were eliminated after five defeats in the preliminary round.

International matches

The newly formed team defeated New Zealand in July 2007 with 44: 8 and 39:10. In addition, England and Scotland played separately at the EHF Challenge Trophy 2007 in Luxembourg. England won against Scotland (31:20), Ireland (24:17) and Malta (22:19) and lost to Luxembourg (13:41) and the Faroe Islands (17:35). In October 2008 there were three games against Oman, one of which was won (23:29, 28:22, 20:27). On June 12, 2010 the only victory in a qualifying tournament was achieved with 33:32 over Bulgaria in Crystal Palace.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Liverpool HC history ( Memento from December 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ "Unearthing hidden talent" ( Memento from December 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ "Exotensport" Handball - From the "Hand of God" to "Olympic Handball" , in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , November 7, 2007
  4. ↑ BHA appoints top coaches for World Class Handball Program ( Memento from October 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Paul Goodwin appointed BHA General Manager ( Memento of October 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ www.tv-oppenweiler.de Backnanger Kreiszeitung: The pressure has not decreased: Important game in Möhringen for the Württembergligateam ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated February 22, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tv-oppenweiler.de
  7. ↑ One man, one goal , in Kölner Stadtanzeiger , March 7, 2007
  8. ^ "From zero to one hundred" - Great Britain on the way to the 2012 Olympics , in Handballimfernsehen.de , from January 21, 2008
  9. ↑ Development aid from the bankruptcy club , in sport1.de , from February 2, 2009
  10. ^ TUSEM Essen team in the 08/09 season
  11. ↑ EHF CHallenge Trophy results  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.scottishhandball.com  
  12. ↑ Game report GBR-BUL

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