The beginning

Tonight my post is dedicated to those handball pioneers who started the sport in Italy in the 70s. People like Nello Attias and Aurelio Chiappero in Rome,Nicola Saulle,Paolo Del Bianco and Tony Pasolini in Rimini,Heinz Gutweniger and Ralf Dejaco in Bozen and Brixen,Vittorio Francese in Bologna,Pier Luigi Montauti in Teramo and many more across Italy. As a young child,I was one of the regulars in my native Rimini at the derby matches between La Rapida and H.C. Rimini.In the beginning matches were played at that very simple tarmac outdoor court behind the football stadium..which regularly saw epic battles in sunny or rainy days as at that stage the local arena was just a pipe dream. Those were the days where pallamano was a very young sport,totally new to the masses but with administrators full of enthusiasm ,eager to stand together for one goal only: promoting handball across Italy and make it a success. Nowadays people say that handball is basically unknown in big cities but I recall very well Rome in the 80s being one of the main handball centres in the country.Who of my generation does not remember teams like Banco di Roma, Eldec and Tor di Quinto? So my question would be: what happened after those golden years?One by one historic handball places like: Rimini,Scafati,Modena,Rovereto disappeared from the map. Was it just because of the usual rigmarole about the economic recession and hurdles met by handball in establishing itself as an "Italian"sport or perhaps was because of something else? I look forward to hearing from anybody with a view on the matter.