Webinars prove a huge hit for Handball England
A free webinar series set-up by Handball England featuring a host of top handball coaches has attracted over 600 signs-up from across the world in the space of just three weeks.
Handball England’s far-reaching Continuing Professional Development webinars on Zoom have proven to be a huge hit with viewers tuning in from not just Europe but in the US, Jamaica, Venezuela, India, Japan and Jordan.
Among those who have agreed to make an appearance on the series is Paulo Pereira, who guided Portugal to a sixth-place finish at Men’s EHF EURO 2020.
The next episode, which goes live on Wednesday at 15:00 CEST, focuses on goalkeeping, with THW Kiel and German national team goalkeeper coach Matthias Andersson joined by Nikola Marinovic of Grasshopper Club Zurich.
Germany's national goalkeeper coach Matthias Andersson is one of the next guests on Handball England's webinar
All previous five webinars can be viewed online, and with nine more to come, there promises to be content for everyone.
The idea was the brainchild of Bobby White and Ricardo Vasconcelos at Handball England.
White, National Performance Manager, told eurohandball.com: “With the Covid-19 issue we had to respond quickly to offer support to the handball community here in England.
“The idea for the webinars came from Ricardo, who is the Great Britain Men’s coach, and who is also involved in the development team at England Handball.
“Ricardo and I got to work on the project and in 48 hours we had identified 15 themes and confirmed guest speakers for each one. We wanted to hit as wide an audience as possible in terms of themes, but we had no idea that it would be so well received across the extended handball community around the world.”
White now hopes that the series can help lift the profile of handball in England.
He added: “We’re buzzing to have high profile people want to connect with us.
“I really hope that the series shows people over the world that we’re taking handball seriously here in England.
“We’re on a mission to grow the game here and help where we can to develop it around the world.”
To watch the previous webinars and to find further information on forthcoming episodes – one of which includes an introduction to the EHF’s digital scoresheet with Antonio Ojeda – visit the Handball England website.
Referee’s don’t stop
It is not just coaches and players that are sitting out the action during the pandemic – referees are also on the sidelines waiting patiently for the return of handball.
With that in mind, some of Spain’s top handball officials featured on a series of webinars focusing on a variety of refereeing and rule-related topics, discussing anything from letting the game flow to personality and body language.
All of the presentations are available to view (in Spanish) online on the YouTube channel of the Handball Federation of Valencia.
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EHF/ab