“Is it like netball ?” by Matome Rampyapedi

To a random South African, “handball” is a foul in a soccer match; to them it’s odd that we use hands to score in those goalposts. But this is not because they are ignorant or they just don’t like handball, well, first of all you’d have to know about something before you “hate” it. That’s where the problem lies, the average South African knows nothing about handball (and how awesome it is). This is very odd since handball has been in the country for more than 20 years now. So what’s the problem here? Knowing how appealing and exciting handball is, surely it should be easy to at least market the sport, right? Well, the problem here is clear, either someone isn’t doing or doesn’t know their job at all. I’m not just saying it to “trash-talk” anyone in the SA handball Federation, don’t get me wrong. But I have proof to back me up on that point. In 2011 I started a project with a few of my teammates, with the help of Johannesburg Handball association and Mr.Guenter Schaefer. The whole objective was to market the sport in one area of Soweto. We would go out to the busiest streets, close them down, start playing handball, invited people to come play and we’d give them a shirt just for playing (the shirt was part of the marketing plan). We did this for 3 weekends in a row, and it was very successful because after this, the local handball club saw their membership increasing rapidly. We then went around the area asking people about handball and how familiar they are with it, the responses were remarkable! And to date, most people don’t insult our sport by confusing it with………. netball! My point to all this is that; if a bunch of unresourced teenagers can raise awareness to a whole township, what has the Federation (with access to a lot more resources and people) been doing all along? Matome Rampyapedi