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handball
Handball is an indoor game that has as much history as it packs excitement. Aninda Sardar takes a look

While handball might not be as popular as other indoor sports that have huge fan followings, a typical game is fast paced and every bit as physical as is necessary to make a game extremely exciting. A case in point was the 9th Asian Men's Club League Handball Championships 2006 held last month at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex, Bausher.

With Bahrain based Barbar Club competing with hot favourites Al Rayyan from Qatar, the atmosphere was electric, and the audience who came to see the players jostling each other for the perfect position to make a score went back thoroughly entertained. The end of the day saw Al Rayyan win the match, albeit by a rather small margin of one goal, and even a minor scuffle that was quickly diffused by the authorities at the complex. This match was followed almost immediately by another match where players from the Iranian club Foulad Mubarak would take on Saudi Arabia's Al Ahli.

But all this aside, where did this game originate? What are its rules? Is it simply a game that emulates the more popular football, except that this one is played with your hands? To start where one should, the game of handball was known to the people of ancient Greece. Historical evidence, at least, suggests so. The games of Urania played by the ancient Greeks and described by the great poet Homer in his Odyssey, Harpaston played by the Romans and described by the great Roman doctor Claudius Galenus between 130 and 200AD and the Fangballspiel (catch ball game) featured in the songs of the German lyrical poet Walther von der Vogelweide (1170-1230AD) all contained certain features that can be described as ancient forms of the sport.

Modern handball, however, did not come about until the end of the 19th century. German physical education experts who gained recognition for field handball as a separate sport at the turn of the century, based on the games of Raffball (snatch ball) and Königsbergerball, were probably the founding fathers of modern handball. In Sweden it was G Wallström who introduced his country to a certain sport named handball at the beginning of the last century in 1910.

In handball two teams of seven players (goal keeper plus six) each battle for an hour – divided into halves – to score higher than the opponents. The half-time break lasts for about ten minutes. The sport is played on a court that is 40m long and 20m wide, divided in the centre. There are two lines that surround the goal. The first one is a semi-circular line about six metres away from the post, while the other one is another semi-circular line about nine metres from the post. There is also a line at seven metres from where the players can take penalty shots. Only the defending goalkeeper is allowed inside the six-metre circle.

The ball is smaller and softer than a normal football, to facilitate catching and throwing. Players are allowed to come in full frontal contact with each other, but using their torsos only. Foul play is rewarded by a progressive format of awarding penalties. Referees may award a nine-metre free throw to the attacking team or even a a seven-metre penalty shot. In extreme cases referees give the defender a yellow card warning a two-minute penalty where the player has to sit through two minutes of playing time or a red card that results in the player’s permanent expulsion from the match.

The usual formations of the defence are the so called 6-0, when all the defence players are within the six metre and nine metre lines; the 5-1, when one of the players cruises outside the nine metre perimeter, usually targeting the centre forwards; and the least common 4-2 when there are two such defenders. The usual attacking formation includes two wingmen, a centre left and a centre right and two centres, one of which tends to intermingle with the defence and is also known as the pivot or line player.