Liverpool Handball Club women's team have been excluded from the English Handball 'Final Four' tournament this season, despite being eligible to qualify after a successful campaign.
The Greenbank-based club announced on Instagram on Wednesday that, due to technicalities involving league rules, the women’s team would not be attending the end-of-season tournament.
The team were on track to join NEM Hawks and the top two from the Southern Premier Division in the league’s grand finale round-robin tournament, due to take place over three weeks in April.
Plans changed when the club failed to meet specific criteria put in place by the EHA (England Handball Association) that require teams to establish sufficient youth networks at primary school level.
Club Secretary Hannah Kempster said: “Overall it’s just disappointment and a bit of anger. Everyone was playing really well, and we were enjoying the season.”
Despite being the oldest club in England, LHC are a fairly new squad, officially merging with Wirral Peninsula for the restructured north and south Premier Leagues introduced last year.
They have multiple members who help teach handball and PE in secondary schools in the Merseyside area, but the league’s criteria specifies that a primary school setup, alongside competition and EHA meeting attendance is required to qualify for the ‘Final Four.’
Ms Kempster said: “As well as weekly sessions at secondary schools, one of our volunteers does CPD (continued professional development) for teachers. He helps teach GCSE PE to teachers so they can teach at the schools. Why does that not class as assisting the development of the sport?
“Everyone appreciates the need for development, it’s just annoying that we haven’t got the appreciation from the EHA as a newer side making that 'Final Four'.
“We’ve got plans to set up in primary schools over Easter, which we’ve mentioned in our appeal, but because of this we had an idea that this announcement was coming.”
There was reason for optimism after they pulled together a team in a relatively short amount of time, with Ms Kempster adding: “If not for an admin error changing the throw-off of one of our games against Birmingham meaning our players couldn’t attend, we should have won the northern league.”
A similar situation has happened with London handball club, London GD’s men’s and women’s teams. They said in their recent Instagram post: “We do not have words to express our disappointment.” They pointed out that they also had a youth plan in place, but it was deemed to have been too late.
Both teams expressed disappointment with the EHA’s administrative procedures, with suggestions that development criteria are unrealistically difficult at times for squads consisting of hobbyists and volunteers. Ms Kempster said: “If you read the comments on both of our posts, there are quite a few saying nothing has changed.”
There are now fears that these complications will discourage players from joining or continuing in the sport.
LHC remain hopeful the situation will resolve itself soon. Ms Kempster said: “We’ll probably lose some numbers from our women’s team in the next few years, learning that you’ve worked hard just to be told you can’t make this final competition based off of some criteria.
“I think we must be hopeful it will change. I know the work that were doing will eventually allow us to establish a decent youth setup.”
*You can keep up with LHC’s activities on their Instagram @liverpool_hc.
