One-wall handball is basically a very simplified version of fives, allowing people from around the world, with their different variations of handball, to compete on common ground. In a nutshell, there is one wall and a court. You have to hit a big blue bouncy rubber ball against wall and into the court – a rally generally follows. You can play singles or doubles, though this weekend, we only played doubles.

England's first pair was a made up of two Eton fives players – Pete Cohen and David Mew – and the second pair was Rugby – Dan Grant and Adrian Lee – and each adjusted to the game in various ways. The secret of handball is to be good at volleying and to have super-fast reactions near the front wall (where the Eton duo excelled), but you also have to be able to hit it low (the best shot is to hit the nick where the wall meets the floor) and powerfully – a Rugby skill. `This was the first time most of us had played competitively against other nations, so the whole weekend was a superb learning curve and we all noticeably improved as the weekend went on.

The experience was a little bit surreal, with an FA Cup-style draw done for the group stages on the Friday night – the Italian version however, consisted of 4 wenches fishing names out of various wine glasses – and then on Saturday the competition commenced. There was a flag procession for all the nations in front of 200 screaming fans and we were filmed for local television.

We would be competing against the Welsh, Irish, French, Belgians, Dutch, Basques, Italians and Americans. Pete and David had a good victory over the home team in the group stages and then put up a good fight in the plate. Dan and Ady also played very well, and although they lost all their group matches, fortunately they didn't finish with the wooden spoon, because they beat the Welsh on points!

In the end, England's first pair finished 16th out of 21 (having annihilated the Belgians) and our second finished 18th – after destroying the Netherlands in the Bowl competition. Although this may not seem too good, considering it was the third time we’d ever played, we were pretty happy with our progress. Things can only get better from here on and, come the world championships in 2009, the smart money is definitely going to be on us to win (probably)

In the end, the USA dominated and thrashed everyone, since one-wall handball is actually their native sport. It was a great experience and it was awesome to meet so many people from around the world. Thanks to Ady, the England team had by far the best kit and we made every other country jealous; Milan being the capital of fashion, we had to get our priorities right! But the highlight of the weekend had to be the French getting red-carded in the quarter finals for disorderly conduct. Excellent.

P.M.C.

Italian Open Handball Championships 2007 - Report by Peter Cohen
Created 21st January 2008 by Mike Fenn
efa@etonfives.co.uk

Go to EFA Home page