Before you learn something about handball, you should know a little bit about it’s history. In this article, I am going to show you, how the sport became what it is now.

It all began thousands of years ago. The first records of handball-style games are going back to antiquity. Homer described a game called ‘Urania’ in the Odyssey.
The Romans also played ball games near the year 0. Approximately 150 years A.D. the Roman doctor Claudius Galenus described ‘Harpastum’. Unfortunately, the information we have about these game are very thin. It is believed, that it had similarities with rugby.

Urania
‘Urania’ is a game, that was mostly played by girls in Greece.
One person is standing in the middle with a ball, while everyone else stands around, facing this person. As soon as person one threw the ball up in the air and said a name, these person has to jump and catch the ball while he is still in the air. When he succeeds, he changes position with the person who threw the ball. If not, he is out.

But let’s not talk about all the roots of the sport, which have little to do with the modern handball.
The founding fathers of field handball were probably German physical education experts who gained recognition for field handball as a separate sport in the late 19th century. It was a mix of ‘Raffball’ and soccer. In Sweden it was G. Wallström who introduced his country to a certain sport named “handball” in 1910.

Raffball
Two teams compete against each other. The goal is to play a ball into the opponent’s goal or behind a mall line. Team sizes vary from seven to ten players, and there is no set practice for the size of the field. The game time is two times 15 minutes or even three won runs.

One of the biggest differences between the Handball then and today is, that it was played outside. Only 80 years ago, the Indoor-Handball was found. It was the Danes who found great favor in indoor handball. Since it was a winter game, people were able to flee from the cold into a warm gym and watch a game with a lot of action and excitement. The comfort to sit in the warm and watch, made the outdoor Handball almost disappear. There are only a few local tournaments (mostly for kids) that are played outside. At least until the recent years. A new kind of Outdoor-Handball has it’s own official rules: Beach handball.

Handball is now played on every habitable continent on this planet. It is estimated that about 7 million players are registered with a club. Many of the European clubs are professional and some have players who are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Professional clubs in Asia (in South Korea, China and Japan) are becoming established and are considered as very competitive on the international stage. Africa, the Americas and Oceania (our region) mainly comprise of amateur clubs but are very enthusiastic.

https://handballaustralia.org.au/handball/history-of-handball/