“ The Arte of Handball” by Sean Dwyer (1815). It's the story of Tate Coldiron who makes his living playing stake matches before rich and betting audiences and inviting players with more ego than talent into money matches. A great read but so as to not disappoint we reproduce one of the chapters.

The Scam
[Barry West, top local player, was practising his shots after his latest win and suddenly aware of a disembodied voice in the gallery – a man stepped onto the gallery rail].

“If they hung you for being a handballer you’d die innocent’ Barry stared in disbelief at the figure appearing above “If I had this court reserved for another hour I’d be happy to hand you your ass” Coldiron’s laugh drifted down to the court “Isn’t that a coincidence? I happen to have this very court booked – would you be interested in a little stakes match? ”Be easy on yourself, pop” ” How about twenty-five bucks a game and fifty for the match” says Coldiron. “Get your gear, you’re on” smiled Barry.

It took Tate ten minutes to get to the locker room and prepare for the match. He peeled back the lid of a new tin of balls, don his blue shirt and togs and run his hands under water as hot as he could stand. West, waiting, in the hallway nearly laughed as Coldiron limped towards him. He was certain he was the victim of a cruel joke pulled on him by his friends, sending a wino plucked out of the Y to harass him. “You sure you want to go through with this” Barry asked. Coldiron took some shots against the front wall, lobbed some ceiling balls but showed West nothing during the warm up “You serve – you’re going to need it” Coldiron said.

Barry stepped up to serve and on the off chance that the whole thing was for real decided to get it all over quickly. He laid the serve into the back left hand corner – excellent serving low and dying where wall and floor meet. One – zero. Next serve was to Coldiron’s right, again low and hard. Coldiron reacted, dug the ball out lightning fast and ‘thunk’, a perfectly executed kill. The old man was now in, bounced the ball three times and saw his opponent lean to the left telegraphing his weak side. He twisted his wrist sharply on contact, the ball made a crazy right turn as it came off the floor and headed for the side wall instead of following its natural path to the back. West caught the hard rubber on the tip of his middle finger sending a sharp pain up his arm. The next serve had no slice, no bounce but stopped dead as if attached to a string. Barry missed it by six inches. Then Tate took a dive – he gave the kid an easy one off the backwall to kill. Now Barry decided to lay everything in to the left hand corner – the guy was a one-armed bandit – only the greats could kill with both hands. He vowed to have Coldiron looking like a pretzel by the end of the match. But Tate won the first game 21-18 making it more even by intentionally blowing a number of shots. It was money he was after, not reputation and not to scare the kid off. Coldiron also capture the second game 21-17, playing around and teasing Barry by laying the ball just out of his reach but close enough that the kid tried for everything. He had West running like a crazy man but gave him nothing easy. And during the five-minute break to show how fresh he was he practised shots. “Got only one game left” West mumbled as he dragged himself back to the court. Since it was the last game Coldiron finished it fast. He moved like a high wire steel worker – the ball moved as if controlled electronically. He showed Barry variations of slicers, pass shots, fisters and roof play that West had never seen before. The final tally was 21-1.

T.O'C.

The Arte of Handball: Article provided by Tom O'Connor
Created: Created 22 January 2008 by Mike Fenn
efa@etonfives.co.uk