Handball hits Western Cape

Five teams took part in the Open Challenge Cup, with each team fielding a boys’ team and a girls’ team. The teams in the tournament were Ocean View Handball Club, CPUT, Khayelitsha Handball Club, Gugulethu Handball Club and Rescue Youth of the Community (RYCO) from Langa.

CPUT’s Sports development officer Ruth Saunders said, “The Department of Sports and Recreation has asked us to introduce the sport of handball to all FET colleges and to our communities, and to popularise the sport.”

CPUT also organised a workshop.

Sphamandla Zaleni, coach of the Khayelitsha team, said, “Handball is a very small sport - we don’t get many opponents - so we are introducing the sport in schools and we’ll be starting a league very soon.”

“We need our own space to train because we always fight for the space we use at the moment,” Zaleni added.

The team has to share the Thusong Centre with other sporting codes.

But the Khayelitsha team does boast an international player.

Jonas Goetz from Germany said, “I’ve been playing handball for five years and I had to stop when I came to do voluntary work in South Africa. After not playing for three months, I decided to look for a team and I found one in Khayelitsha.”

“These tournaments are good for the sport because there is no league and it is difficult to develop the sport with few teams.”

The workshops seem to be working in trying to develop the sport because Unathi Malothana, the captain of RYCO, was first introduced to handball when he attended a workshop.

“Before, I used to see it in the Olympics. I decided to try it.

“ I think if it were introduced in schools this would help the sport grow”, says Malothana.

Gugulethu Handball club won both boys’ and girls’ tournaments, CPUT came second in both, and Ocean View came third in the girls’ section and Khayelitsha in the boys’.