GE HC has a boys 11 team played in the Partille Cup

by edinburgh handball club, the 30.09.2009

GE HC has a boys 11 team played in the Partille Cup, July 2009 as well as Girls playing for a Scotland Select development squad Alba HC.

For many of the players and parents this is the first time they have ever been, an experience for them all, the club would like to wish all players,

Jordan Wilson, Shane Hunter, Ross Strachan, Sean Mcmahon, Ross Gannon, Cameron Comrie , Zander Chalmers, Blair Strachan, Ross Comrie

Kayla Wallace, Ellie Wilson, Taylor Hoven, Lorna Davies, Meghan McMahon, Morgan Anderson, Katie Baxter

Coaches Raymond Wilson, Allan Stokes, Alan Strachan,

Parents Chaperones Mags Wallace, Charlie Marshall, Sheona Mcmahon, Anne Anderson,

And supporters, Mr and Mrs Baxter, Shane Granddad, and Allan Comrie, the best of luck and enjoy the trip.

To get the scores log onto www.partillecup.com. B11’s group 3 or G13’s group 7

GE HC has been awarded £800

by edinburgh handball club, the 30.09.2009

GE HC has been awarded £800 from Sport Scotland through their sportmatch programme to create a girls development programme in Edinburgh. This money is to support the £800 already received from IIS Gothenburg for the team forthcoming trip to Partille Cup Sweden.

The gallery linked to this article is the adults in the recent end of season Parent/coaches v kids which, which the Parents/coaches won 16-13.

ISS website is www.iisab.com

Sportscotland website is www.sportscotland.org.uk

The club would like to thanks both IIS and Sportscotland for the funds.

Pre - Season Fitness

by edinburgh handball club, the 18.08.2009

Hey Everyone, a quick news to let you know that the Pre season training started since Tuesday 4th august 2009.

So fo Anyone who wants to join us and get fit for this new season come and meet us each Tuesday at 7pm at Tennis courts in the Meadows.

See you all soon :)

2009 Street Handball Event

by edinburgh handball club, the 13.04.2009

Come and Try Handball

The first ever

Gracemount Edinburgh Handball Club

2009 Street Handball Event

Rules: teams can be mixed or single gender teams

basic handball rules :

 use your hands to pass and catch the ball, and throw into goal without going into goalkeeper area
 4 a side with 1 goalkeeper and 3 outfield players (2subs max)
 No contact
 No dribble
 3 steps
 3 secs standing still

Venue: Liberton High School

 Each week is a different tournament.
 Best team after 3 events wins

Tuesday 9th, 16th, 23rd June 2009

Two events:
 13years and under 1800hr-1930hrs
 Adults 16years plus 1900hr to 2100hrs

Indoor and outdoor courts weather permitting

Free entry

International and National League players/coaches on hand to help Contact us for further details

Upcoming events

by edinburgh handball club, the 13.04.2009

Event 1- adult players/parents only..

An end of season night to Jongleurs Comedy club on Friday 15th May. It is £10 a head, and all money raised on tickets goes to club funds, Marc has the tickets, so can all players/friends/parents please see marc for your tickets, as it is a good night and chance to support the club, and help the club develop, as any funds raised go into our development funds to promote the sport of handball further, and give many more kids the chance to play this sport..

So don’t delay, get your tickets now.

Event 2: GE HC player of the year awards night

This is the second year we will have run this event, and request all players/parents/family and friends to support the night, as above the aim is to support and try to raise funds for the club, which will be invested In the club, future, by developing more chances for kids to play and experience more about handball.

The End of year players award is :

Friday 5th June 2009

Liberton High School

7.15pm-10.30pm

All players are invited along with family/friends.

Liberton vs Cumbernauld

by edinburgh handball club, the 22.12.2008

December 13th

Today saw the last game of the pre-xmas league for Liberton and Cumbernauld. The game presented Cumbernauld with a very slim chance of pipping Gracemount to 2nd place in the league, but for them to achieve that they would have to win by 27 goals. We wholeheartedly expected them to try for this but due to our previous performances against Glasgow and Tryst, we were more focused on keeping the scores even as opposed to trying not to lose by 27 goals.

We began the game with less players than we would have liked with Sven in goals and 8 outfield players meaining that we only had 2 substitutions, one of them being myself as I couldn’t play in goals due to an ankle injury. Nevertheless, we were up for it and certainly aimed to give a good account of ourselves.

Cumbernauld hit the ground running at the start of the game, and quickly went 5-0 up. It was beginning to look like the 27 goal defecit was infact a realistic proposition, but once we settled the game down to a pace that suited us, we began to score goals. Player/coach Fred Wallace came into play after about 6 minutes and proved to be the driving force in Liberton’s somewhat stationary attack. We began to move the ball more and stretched Cumbernauld’s 3-2-1 defensive formation, creating some gaps for us to take shooting opportunities. The first goal of the game was grabbed by Blair Strachan on right wing, which proved to be a strong position for us throughout the game. After the initial 10 minute hiccup, we seemed to get back into the game and kept the scores at roughly the same gap for most of the 1st half. Contrary to our previous games against Tryst and Glasgow, we were far more creative in attack and sprayed the ball around very quickly at times in order to create scoring opportunities. In defence, we were also very focused despite a couple of silly errors. We were keeping Cumbernauld at bay whenever they couldn’t hit us on the break.

The most impressive part of our game in the first half was undoubtedly the awareness between our players, which is something that has really been lacking this year. We expected Cumbernauld to hit us on the break as often as they could, but Cumbernauld didn’t expect that from us. Thanks to the heightened awareness and concentration, we scored a good number of goals on the break during the first half with some excellent movement especially from Fred Wallace and Alexandré Amossé.

We went into half time 7 goals down, which was very promising considering our shaky first 10 minutes. Once we started playing, we kept Cumbernauld within our reach and really gave them some difficulty. Some fantastic saves by their keeper kept our goal count down. Fred’s half time team-talk was positive, basically telling us to continue what we were doing. A good first half performance was vastly improved upon in the 2nd half however.

The first 5 minutes of the 2nd half saw Cumbernauld being continually frustrated. We hit them on the break 3 or 4 times and clawed the scoreline down to a gap of 5 goals. They didn’t let that phase them however, and slightly altered their attack to try and grab some goals back. The Cumbernauld line player saw some joy during the second half, with some poor defending from Liberton. Nevertheless, we kept the gap in the scores between 5 and 7 and produced some more great moves in attack. Blair Strachan grabbed a few more goals on the right wing, Alexandré Amossé scored a few on the left and Thomas Pascal powered some shots into the goal from centre.

Throughout the second half, our defending was impressive. Our guys weren’t scared to make the challenge when they had to, and despite some slips allowing Cumbernauld’s line player some easy goals, there were many positives to take. At the end of the game, the scoreline read 33-25 to Cumbernauld. An 8 goal win, not close to what they needed to pip Gracemount to 2nd place. However, I personally believe that the 8 goal gap is slightly deceiving. Cumbernauld started the game very well whereas it took us 5 minutes to really settle down, based on the overall performance I would say that the scoreline should have been much closer.

Overall a good performance today, very clear improvements have been made on our previous games. Our passing and movement in attack was great for long spells, and although we gifted Cumbernauld some goals, in general our defence was good. We may have lost but at the end of the day, seeing such vast improvements in our play means we can go into the Christmas break happy.

Liberton: Sven Le Moine Bauer, Jan Haenraets, Fred Wallace, Thomas Pascal, Pierre Boinot, Tom Scott, Blair Strachan, Panos Antonopoulos, Alexandré Amossé

Glasgow vs Gracemount

by edinburgh handball club, the 06.12.2008

Saturday December 6th 2008

The final game of the pre-xmas league for both teams, and the most important match of the year at that. With Glasgow sitting top of the league on 8 points, Gracemount needed to win the game to take the league. Glasgow needed at least a draw to win the title.

Gracemount went into the game with a near full strength team, missing Donald Seed and their most dangerous goalscorer Romain Braind. With 12 players, there was plenty of room for maneuver. The guys made a very promising start with tough defence, preventing Glasgow from making any ground in attack. At the opposite end of the court, some powerful play from Mounir Iddir grabbed Gracemount an early lead and within 5 minutes we were up 3-1. Glasgow realised they needed to turn up the heat in attack, and started playing a much more physical game than they had in the first 5 minutes. At times it seemed more like a rugby match, with Matieu Blanc being judo thrown outside of 9 metres and receiving a 2 minute suspension for it.

This was a frequent occurance throughout the game for both sides. Players were being suspended constantly, which shows just how desperate both teams were for the win. Playing their physical game, Glasgow pulled back and got themselves into the lead on 16 minutes. They led 5-4, and began to capitalise on their numerical advantage as Gracemount had a player off. This was very much the course of the rest of the first half, with players from both sides being suspended for hard physical tackles. Both Gracemount goalkeepers played well in the first half of the game making quite a few stops to keep the team in the game.

Glasgow went into half time with a 15-12 lead. The break was welcomed as players were beginning to get noticably angry with the referees and it allowed them 5 minutes to calm down and collect their thoughts. Strengths and weaknesses were identified and Gracemount went out with sheer grit and determination into the second half to break the 3 goal defecit.

Within 4 minutes there was only 1 goal in the game, thanks to some smart attacking play from Thomas Pascal. The next 10 minutes saw a shift in Gracemount’s attacking pattern, with more of a focus on getting the ball to the wings and pulling the wing defender. This was very successful, with Jan Haenraets scoring 4 times on left wing and Gordon Wilmsmeier getting a beautiful goal on right wing. Glasgow’s number 14 continued with his overpowering physical play, often knocking Gracemount defenders off their feet, and was given 2 suspensions within 10 minutes.

Despite Gracemount’s resurgence, Glasgow kept themselves 1 goal ahead, until with 10 minutes to go they found themselves 2 players down. Their number 8 was red carded for 3 suspensions, and Gracemount found a massive opportunity to break away. The score was even, but some superb movement from Glasgow’s 4 attackers produced a goal and they managed to keep the scoreline even until their team was restored to 7.

The final 5 minutes were action packed, with the scores bouncing around like a pinball. With 2 minutes to go, the score was 27-27. Glasgow knew they only needed the draw to take the title, but they knew that playing for a draw would ultimately work against them so they pushed in attack for a killer goal. Laszlo Csoma was given a 2 minute suspension for Gracemount and Glasgow used this to propel themselves into a 2 goal lead with 45 seconds remaining. Mounir Iddir instantly replied with a powerful goal bringing the scores to 29-28, but that is how the game ended as Glasgow held onto the ball for the remaining 30 seconds.

Losing the league title by 2 goals leaves a bitter aftertaste, especially when you were given so many opportunities to seize the win. Nevertheless, we’ll be back after Christmas and hoping to break Glasgow the next time we meet.

Gracemount: 1. Sebastian Verdot, 2. Gordon Wilmsmeier, 3. Mael le Hurand, 5. Jamie Lau, 6. Jan Haenraets, 7. Thomas Pascal, 8. Alexandre Amossé, 9. Mounir Iddir, 11. Chris Watson, 12. Laszlo Csoma, 13. Mattieu Blanc, 16. Jakub Janikiewicz

Tryst 77 HC -vs- Liberton HC

by edinburgh handball club, the 22.11.2008

Saturday, 22nd November 2008

Today gave us arguably our best chance before Christmas to grab a win, against a Tryst team with a similar setup to our own. Some pretty experienced players beside quite a few younger guys that are just in the league to get more experience rather than win every game. It was evident when we arrived that we had a bigger team physically and had subs whereas Tryst only had 7 players, the question was: Could we make that tell in the scoreline?

The match started and we were very quickly made aware that despite the advantages we had over Tryst, their advantage over us was perhaps more significant. The Tryst guys worked very well together, and had a far higher level of understanding compared with our own. With 3 debutants in our line up, we were just that half a step behind Tryst when it really mattered. Tryst started 3-2-1 in defence with our guys adopting a more common 6-0 at the back, which for the first half did more harm for us than good. Challenges weren’t being made, and as a result Tryst were gifted a few easy goals, whereas their defence made us work much harder in attack to try and get anything. Despite this, we managed to keep the scores fairly even for much of the 1st half against a team that were much better organised and just that bit faster than ourselves.

What didn’t help us at all in the first half was the myriad of cautions, 2 minute offences and penalties we had given against us. The majority of these were unquestionably our fault and some for pretty silly things like substituting outside of the designated area, but such is the way of life. Hopefully because of this, we’ll have learned our lesson for future games. Tryst converted 3 penalties in the first half which made much of the difference at half time as they went in with a 4 goal lead.

At half time, the order of business was the lack of defensive pressure and the lack of movement and creativity in attack. We went back out for the 2nd half with renewed confidence and sought to break Tryst’s 4 goal cushion, and for a few minutes it was clear that if we got the basics right we could break through them in attack and stop them from scoring at our end. A less than decent first half for myself and Seb in goal was made up for in the 2nd half with a much better performance from both of us, with a penalty save each and a few other decent stops, but this partly has to be credited to the outfield guys for their improved defence, making it harder for Tryst to get a shot in from 6 metres. As stated above - "a penalty save each". Yes, in the 2nd half penalties conceeded was again a slight problem with another 3 given against us.

Despite the penalties conceeded, the 2nd half was much more positive than the 1st. There was still a slight lack of creativity in attack but defensively we were much better for the majority of the time. There were a few slips but considering we had 3 guys playing their first game for the club this season, there were definitely positives to take.

What could have been a turning point in the game unfortunately didn’t come to anything, as we found ourselves 6 against 4 outfield due to 2 Tryst players being sent off for 2 minutes. We pulled a goal back, then had a player sent off for 2 minutes for a bad tackle. Not long after that, Tryst were back to 5, then 6 and the short advantage we had was gone.

At the final whistle we saw a familiar sight, another loss by 5 goals. Tryst took the game 28-23, and the negatives were the same as the Glasgow and Stirling games. We could have won both of those, as well as today’s game agaisnt Tryst but despite the losses it has to be said that there are many positives. Our young guys like Zander, Craig, Blair and myself are getting experience with every game which is only going to make us into better players whether we win or lose.

A disappointing result, but again showing that we’re by no means far behind the other teams in the league. Our biggest problem today was the fact that we’re not used to playing together as a team yet, and the only remedy to that is to train regularly, which we’re doing. Only a matter of time before the wins start coming!

Liberton: Sebastian Verdot (GK), Tom Scott (GK), Fred Wallace, Craig Hunter, Zander Chalmers, Blair Strachan, Jan Haernaets, Mathieu Blanc , Pierre Boinot, Matheujz Raczynski Mael Le Hurand.

GB 2016 Danish camp selection

by edinburgh handball club, the 10.09.2008

During July 08, Taylor Hoven was selected, to go to the Danish academy in Aarhus, which is the base for the GB national 2012 Olympic programme. Taylor under took a comprehensive programme over 4 days, and gained lots more experience..

Well done Taylor :)

3 Men’s Selected for League Select Squad

by edinburgh handball club, the 10.09.2008

The following players have been selected to train on a monthly basis, with the Scottish League select.. this is a squad of both Scottish and non Scottish personnel, who train along side the national squad, and will compete in future events such as a triangular event in Dublin fro m3rd-5th October 2008

Congratulations to:

 Mounir Iddir
 Laslo Czomo
 Jakub Janiecksiwcz

Girls Selected for national Squad

by edinburgh handball club, the 10.09.2008

GE HC are proud that 3 of their girls born in 1996 and 1997 have been selected to be part of the Scottish handball national girls squad for girls born in 1994-1996. The girls are

 Ellie Wilson
 Kayla Wallace
 Caitlin Wilson

The girls will be training once a month, and have over the next year, 2 camps and at one trip to Partille Cup and hopefully another..

Watch this space for their progress.

Allan Stokes Trials with 1st Division Danish Club

by edinburgh handball club, the 10.09.2008

Allan Stokes is currently on trial with Division 1 club Odder and will be aiming to secure a spot here this season,watch this space for more details