Handball was one of the big winners at London 2012, propelling the popular continental sport into the British mainstream and bringing with it a slew of new clubs. One of those clubs, our very own University of Huddersfield Handball Club has been going from strength to strength. Here Theodor Oanta and Christopher Ireland give us the rundown on another successful season for the fledgling sport.

The new season brought renewed hopes of us winning a trophy, under the management of continuing coach, Ilona Loewnau. After last year’s success, finishing in the top six in the UK Universities’ Handball finals in London, there was a great sense of belief and confidence among the squad at the beginning of the season. However, after losing important players from the previous season, with new ones joining, the pressure of rebuilding the team would be on from the start if the club were to find a successful starting line-up.

Over the course of seven months, from October 2014 to April 2015, the club engaged in two competitions, the North Development League, organised by the England Handball Association (EHA) and the Association of British University Handball Clubs (ABUHC) Universities’ Championship.

After the longest season in the history of the club, the team played 27 official matches in both competitions, with 23 wins, one draw and three losses which led to an 85% win percentage. Moreover, the team played a friendly game against Leeds Hornets, a team competing in England’s top league, the Super 8, which ended in a draw (20-20), after a very intense match.

As the team competed in the newly created third tier of the EHA structure, the North Development League, we had the opportunity to face diversified opponents, from more traditional clubs like Liverpool, one of the oldest and most successful handball clubs in the country, to newer teams, such as Manchester, Newcastle Vikings, Bolton Hussars and more well-known rivals like the two Leeds Universities.

Although, we finished runners-up, our team was the most offensive, scoring 283 goals throughout the competition. Moreover, we had the second best goal difference and finished third in terms of the least goals conceded. These impressive results were thanks to our coach, Ilona Loewnau who integrated all the individual capabilities to find the perfect balance in the team.

Chemistry

Our internal analysis shows that there was a close race between number six, Rafal Skucha and number eight, Romeu Torres in terms of the goals scored, with the former finding the net 58 times in 11 games with an average of 5.3 goals per game, while the latter scoring 56 times in eight games, leading to seven goals per game on average.

Although it might seem like a two horse race, there has always been a good chemistry in the team, with the entire squad contributing to every result. As shown by the statistics, our team average was 23.6 goals scored, 17.7 goals conceded and only 2.6 suspensions per game. The team’s largest win occurred on the 4 February at home against Leeds Carnegie (28-12), while we suffered the biggest loss in the game played away in Bolton (21-9). In addition, the team has a 100% win percentage at home in this season and won all of the last seven games in the competition.

When it comes to the disciplinary side, we received 32 suspensions of two minutes, meaning that one hour and four minutes out of the total 12 hours played in the competition, our team had only six players on the court.

An impressive performance in the Northern Development League was complemented by dominance in the ABUHC Northern Championships, with 11 wins out of 11 games resulting in the team qualifying for the nationals in Birmingham. However, our course in this competition finished in the Quarter-Finals, beaten by Cranfield University 8-6, after a draw which saw all the four strong favourites for winning the competition on the same side of the draw. Although we finished in the last eight Universities in the UK, our analysis suggests a 94% winning percentage, losing one game out of 16 played (15 wins), only below the team that finished third, Cranfield with 94.4%.

Behind the scenes, more people were interested to engage and take more responsibility in the new committee under the guidance of club president, Chris Ireland. In this way, responsibilities were spread between the members, with the club being more organised and everyone playing a very important part in the entire process resulting in better outcomes.

In this way, by promoting handball on the social media, more people were attracted to support the club at the home games, with a size of crowd rarely seen at handball matches in the UK, helping the team maintain its invincibility.

Moreover, newcomers were encouraged to join the ‘Get Active’ sessions run by Team Hud. In this way, one of the main objectives of the committee was to increase the popularity of handball by promoting the club to the students, by posting match reports for most home games, creating events and new opportunities for students to join the club and by posting news and updates on the social media accounts and on the club’s website.

In addition, the club has been involved in three volunteering opportunities since June 2014 (June 2014 Huddersfield New College, April 2015 Team Hud School Holiday Scheme and May 2015 the School Liaison Team) in developing handball in the local community, especially for the young generation.

By successfully applying to be a Team Hud sport we ensured that as well as regular training, appropriate extra activities (fitness and conditioning sessions) were available for our members to attend.

Although we don’t have any silverware to show at the end of the season, the performances achieved this year have made the University of Huddersfield Club a recognisable name in handball. As a result, prospects for the future development are likely to grow this year, for a fast development club, founded in 2011, as not many teams knew much about the Huddersfield team until recently.

In recognition of our achievements this year, we were shortlisted for the club of the year for the second year in a row and awarded a Silver Quality Mark from Huddersfield Students’ Union.

Nevertheless, we would like to thank Team Hud and Huddersfield Students’ Union for their support and help throughout the season and to our sponsor for this year, Revolution.

We look forward to the 2015/2016 season with the aim of improving our team and with silverware in mind. 

If you would like to find out more information about joining handball you can find them online through their webpage, their own website, you can follow them on Twitter and like them on Facebook. This article first appeared on the University of Huddersfield Handball Club's blog.