Handball…..
I was making myself a cup of tea, and the TV in the tea room was showing a replay of an Olypmic Handball match…
I’ve always vaguely been aware that Handball was an Olympic sport, but I always assumed it was the game we played at primary school.
That game was vaguely tenis based, and had a couple of variations. The most simple of which involved two players one on one in a square each. One was the server. The rules were that the ball had to bounce in your square first, and it was only allowed to bounce once in the oponents square. If it bounced a second time, or bounced out then they would lose. If your hit went in to their square on the full, or otherwise went out without bouncing first in your square, and then in theirs, then you lost.
It was usualy played sudden death style – no scoring, and the looser would go to the back of the queue and the next person in line would challenge the server.
The most popular variaton to this was what we called Four Square, which involved a 2×2 grid of squares numbered 1 to 4. The person in square 4 was the server.
It worked pretty much the same as the one on one version, but you could hit the ball to any of the other three players. The one who lost a round would leave the square and get on the end of the queue. All those below would then move up one, with the next person on the queue moving into spot 1.
This was generally much more fun, as it gave you a chance to work your way to the top, and even someone who wasn’t very good at it had a fair chance of lasting more than one round, as the person in position 1 was rarely targeted by the other players, as they were usually concentrating on unseating someone higher than them.
The third variation didn’t really have a name. and was similar to 4 square, except instead of a grid, the squares were linear, and you would have as many squares as you had room. We only ever played this in one spot – outside a row of classrooms that had convieniently sized blocks of paving. I think we could fit 6 players at once that way. This variation had the advantage of allowing more players at once, and let you do some really impressive bounces as the server tries to get the ball to someone in the 5th or 6th spot…
It also tended to result in the most lost balls or chances of broken stuff – something that’s very important to your average 10 year old.
The one on one and Four Square could be played either with a tenis ball, or a very bouncy rubber ball about 2/3rds the size of a soccer ball.
The stretched out version was only done with the bigger ball.
However….it turns out that the real game called Handball is nothing like that. It’s actually yet another soccer / hockey game, but with what looks like basket ball rules for the handling of the ball. The only similarities it has with the game I fondly remember from school, is that you use your hands, and the ball looks like it might be the same as the balls we used – it’s about the right size, and appears to be about as bouncy..
I must say that I’m rather disapointed. Did the world really need another team sport in which the goal is to “get the ball into the net at the end of the court”?
[Update]
hmmm…after looking around it seems that Four Square is the widely recognised name of the game I remember, and applies to all of the variations, rather than just being a variation itself. Handball must have just been what we called it, due to the fact that you used your hands – being completly ignorant of the prior existance of Team Handball…
Here’s a site with some more Four Square info – and a better description of the rules.
Personally I still think Olympic Four Square would be much more interesting to watch than yet another football clone ;)
