County Handball Tournament: Year 10 Girls

Handball has a firm place in PE the curriculum of GMS, so it was not surprising that the Year 10 girls were excited at the prospect of competing for GMS in the Handball County Tournament. In total, 19 girls turned up to a morning meeting to express their interest, and confirm their places as part of two squads to go to the competition.

Training began the next day at lunchtime and after school. It was clear from the outset that the girls were keen to improve in a bid to do as well as they possibly could. I have coached many teams in my eight years at GMS but have rarely seen the level of intensity that prevailed in all of the sessions that were organised. (The boys could learn much here!) The progress was exponential; it didn’t take long for the girls to grasp the difficult skill of dribbling, followed by three steps and a jump with a pass or shot at the end: a key skill that set apart players.

For the competition the girls decided they wanted to represent the school as two equal teams based upon their skill and fitness levels. Surprisingly, the girls were pleased with my team selection first time; the ultimate test of this would be in the last game of the tournament where GMS 1 would play GMS 2!

The tournament hosted nine teams from around the county including Milton Keynes: no-one was sure what to expect. The first thing that became very apparent was the quality of the competition, in their warm ups it was obvious that all the teams in attendance were well drilled and could move the ball efficiently and accurately. Each team would have an eight minute straight game against every other team there. The intensity of Handball is of significance, it was going to be a tough day for all teams involved.

Both teams started extremely well and grew in confidence after only a few moments of play. Practice paid dividends as actual set pieces, we had worked on, came to fruition in the actual games; noticeably our fast break play that enabled any one of the GMS girls to receive a long pass out wide, cut in, before executing the shot after three steps.

Georgie Webb, Molly Jones, Sophie Smyth and Flo Braybrooke were absolute specialists at this and created all manner of problems for the opposition throughout the afternoon.

As the afternoon progressed tired players from all teams began to make mistakes, but the GMS girls remained confident and competent. Both teams remained resolute in defence and oppositions only ever scored if we were caught out of position. Tabi Collins and Hannah Puttock should be particularly proud of their organisational skills: expert communication took place while defending as a team at the top of the ‘d’. The girls of both GMS teams also showed how good their cardiovascular fitness was: the girls ran and ran throughout all the games, never showing signs of fatigue. Throughout, the performances remained strong with excellent execution of the key skills.

Overall, both teams played exceptionally well considering that they had never played together as a team in a competitive fixture. They were all slick in their performances and appeared to onlookers as if they had been playing the game for years.

The final game GMS 1 vs GMS 2 was an absolute classic: end to end action with a ferocious intensity that showed neither team, nor any of the players, were prepared to submit. A perfect result of 1-1, after a brilliant game!

Team 2 were placed 4^th and Team 1, 2^nd. GMS had now established itself as a Handball playing school for both the girls and the boys.