International book international book of favorite sports_FV | Page 159

X.1 History of handball
(Marcel – Poland)
Handball - team sport discipline (team play), grown around the world - by both
women and men - in which two teams of 7 competitors each participate. The
object of the game is to throw the ball into the opponent's goal using only hands.
The ball can be thrown, pushed, caught, hit and stopped. Players, in addition to
goalkeepers, have no right to do more than 3 steps with the ball in their hands,
which forces running with dribbling and numerous passes. Goalkeepers, starting
from the goal area, become offensive players and their identical rights apply then
to other players (including the lack of the possibility to return with the ball to the
penalty area). The athlete throws the ball into the goal.
Handball sources should be sought in the distant past. Games such as: urania in
ancient Greece, herpastum in ancient Rome or fangballspiel in medieval
Germany, were similar to modern handball. There are also testimonies of the
existence of similar games in the Middle Ages: in France and among the
Greenlandic Inuit. In the nineteenth century, there were also similar games:
haandbold in Denmark, hazena in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, gandbol in
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