Sri Lanka caught a glimpse of handball from an epic movie which depicted the story of a group who makes use of the sport to flee into Europe. The movie which hit the local and international theatres as ‘Machan’ was a real life occurrence which took place in 2004. Seven years on, handball as a sport is creeping into popularity as much as the movie but now it has potential to exceed the limits with the sport reaching schools.
The Sri Lanka Schools Handball Association (SLSHA) was formed on July 4 this year, and exactly after four months the enthusiastic officials managed to conduct its inaugural tournament with massive participation. The SLSHA held the first ever Inter-School Handball tournament on November 3 and 4, at the D.S. Senanayake College Sports Complex at Wijerama Mawatha, in Colombo. The two-day tournament which was marred by uninterrupted rain could not bring down the morale of 1080 players from 36 schools who eventually became historical partners of this event.
“Our vision was not to perform magic but to establish a solid foundation in spreading handball to the masses which is essentially at school level. This is the first ever handball tournament for schools and there is no second event. If you look at other sports in Sri Lanka, they are rich in history and we, being just four months old, have performed wonders as far as I’m concerned,” emphasized the elated founder secretary of SLSHA, Kapila Pradeep.
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| The lads trying out their skills. (Pix by Amila Prabodha) |
The SLSHA together with the association of Ministry of Education initiated their rapid programme through a recognized foreign coach attached to the International Handball Federation. The schools’ controlling body was boosted by the Sri Lanka Handball Federation (SLHF) headed by Hemasiri Fernando who is also the President of the National Olympic Committee.
“Firstly we conducted coaching camps for teachers as they are the most important people in the whole process. After educating them we conducted two workshops for schoolboys and girls. Nearly 500 participants took part in the first workshop and to the surprise of all the number doubled for the second outing. Even the foreign coach was highly taken up to see a turnout of nearly 950 participants for the second workshop. What he told was, that out of over 40 countries visited so far, he has never seen such passionate beginners,” Pradeep added.
Though cricket, rugby and football take pride of place in Sri Lanka, handball is said to be the most popular sport in the whole of Europe. It is also considered as the second fastest game in the world and in Sri Lanka the popularity is growing fast due to the undying efforts of the stakeholders, the teachers, coaches and officials who are putting in a gallant effort to promote the game.
According to the basic needs of the sport which is played indoors, the playing court should be of 40x20 meters. Seven players are in the court at a given time while a bench of seven players is a must as substitutes. The game is determined on the highest number of goals that is scored after a period of two halves which accounts as an hour. However in contrast to the usual standards the inaugural schools handball championship was held outdoors. To make things worse continuous rain turned the playing areas into muddy fields. But the interest shown by the big-hearted players and officials was too much even for the nature to take on.
“The SLSHA is still at an infancy stage to hold a magnanimous tournament of this nature. None of us expected this tournament to be this huge but for a starter it’s really satisfying. To be honest Sri Lanka still does not possess the comfort of bigger indoor stadiums and in the future there are possibilities of new stadiums being constructed. But if one considers on how we started off, this tournament is a dream come true,” Pradeep went on to say.
The SLSHA held its inaugural general meeting at the Ministry of Education and the principal of D.S. Senanayake College, Colombo D.M.D. Disanayake was elected the president. The SLSHA has a set of generous officials who are teachers of schools and according to Pradeep all of them ventured out to open a bank account in the name of the association.
“There were 28 teachers and all of them contributed 100 rupees each to open an account for SLSHA. Mr. Upali Rajapakse of SLHF gifted us Rs. 10,000 personally while our president, Mr. Disanayake also gave us Rs. 5000 out of his pocket. To conduct the inaugural tournament all of us worked tirelessly. Colonel Raja Gunasekara, who is the schools coordinator for coaching, helped us by supplying all the trophies. Even the sponsor of the tournament, NEO, is keen to continue its support to spread the sport round the country. This is a very positive start and the future signs are hopeful,” he added.
Initially the SLSHA held both its workshops for schools in the Western Province but for the inaugural handball tournament teams from the Anuradhapura, Kurunegala, Matale, Jaffna and Galle districts also took part. It was conducted in Under-15 and 19 age categories but in the future the SLSHA plans to conduct tournaments for age groups of Under-13, 15, 17 and 19. With the success of their first endeavour, the SLSHA is ready to kick start their action plan starting from January next year. They intend to hold coaching camps every fortnight right around the country while conducting tournaments at district, provincial and all-island levels. The target is to see almost all schools in Sri Lanka take up handball by 2013.
“We had a two fold target from the inaugural tournament which was to popularize the sport and to see very good participation. If we take things to account, we could call our attempt as a complete success. With the help of SLHF, the armed forces and members of the national squad who are doing a yeomen service as coaches we can certainly improve our growth. We hope to train teachers-in-charge as coaches which will further strengthen our progress. The sport is not expensive for anyone from any walk of life; so it makes things very easy for us. We see the potential in this sport of becoming most popular in the near future if we manage to carry forward this pace which we experienced in four months,” said Pradeep as he pondered on future plans. | 
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