The development of the mini beach handball discipline made an important step forward this past weekend in Germany, where further game testing was carried out following the initial stages of trialling the version of the game designed for young children last September.

Mini beach handball involves alterations of court and ball size, as well as simplification of the usual substitution system. Over the weekend, children took part in simulated matches following the ‘Recommendations for Mini Beach Handball’, allowing the two creators of the recommendations and the EHF to assess how the concept is moving forward.

The recommendations were prepared by head of the handball teaching research department at the German Sports Univsersity in Cologne Dr Frowin Fasold and EHF beach handball lecturer Alex Gehrer, who began testing regulations for the mini version of the game in 2019 with groups of under 10 and under 12 children.

The concept was originally presented at the EHF’s Scientific Conference in Cologne at the end of November 2019 and made accessible for National Federations thereafter.

Ivana Jelić, Beach Handball manager at the EHF, said: “Grassroots topics such as these are very important for the development of beach handball – one of the priorities by the EHF Beach Handball Commission.”

The July 2020 tests were part of the training weekend on the beach handball courts at TSV Bartenbach, who organised the activities for children together with the other clubs forming the founding group of HT Staufen (TV Börtlingen and TV Wangen) under the direction of HT Staufen sport director and director of trainers of sports teachers for the Government Office Stuttgart Ralf Rascher. 

As part of the training weekend, Gehrer also provided coaches with additional information and ideas regarding mini beach handball.

In line with the motto ‘back to beach handball’, the EHF provided balls and beach handball line systems from TRIAL and GOALCHA in support of the project. The project is also supported by the German Handball Federation in the position paper ‘Return to Play / Return to Beach Handball.’