AKITA 32 - 9 HKUST (11 - 4)

4th win for AKITA After the previous week where the AKITA team struggled to quick start the match, the coaches and players were focused on having a strong performance in the first few minutes. The HKUST Team is made of students from the eponym university where they enjoy the facilities to train every week and are sometime joined in their training by members of the first division HKUST (former students of HKUST). the AKITA team expected a well in place team with a good knowledge of each other and some reasonable bench. The starting 7 was as follow (from left to right) Yoann (5), PA (11), Ulf (20), Hans (14), Rolf (12) with Alex (9) on the line and Markus (74) in the goal. Wan (28), David (18) and Lars (78) were waiting on the bench ready to step in. HKUST won the toss (4 matches and still no toss won for AKITA) and decided to start with the ball. After few moments of observations including an AKITA shoot on the post, PA opened the score passing through the middle of the defence. Continuing on some success from the previous match the AKITA team was working to give opportunities to the left side for PA and Yoann. PA scored a penalty for his third goal and Yoann added one to make the score 4 : 0. Using the pressure created by their early lead, the AKITA team was proving dangerous from all sides with Hans and Ulf increasing the score and Alex moving well to create opportunities for his team mates and finding the post himself. The HKUST was struggling to create chance from the distance and reacted well by doing interesting moves with the line as well as with entry of second lines. AKITA defenders were quick to concede 9 meters to avoid giving a free shoot on the goal and their keepers stepped in to protect the score. Hans was putting pressure on the HKUST defence through his runs and crosses. A good cross for a PA goal was followed by an interception and a fast break goal. David also scored on a fast break showing speed that would prove lethal in the second half. At half time the score was 11 - 4. The coaches refocused the team on the defense to cut the relationship between HKUST halves and their line. The team talk proved successful as the defence got tighter at the restart and did not concede a single goal before the 10th minutes. The backs where taking responsibility for the shooting with Ulf on the line and David in centre working hard to create space and movement. As Lars was then on the right wing he was launching Hans for crosses, long pass or shoots. On the other end as the HKUST right wing was coming to help its half, PA gave the ball to Rolf on the left wing where a clean finish brought the score to 15 - 4. Two more successive goals from David and the score was reaching 18 -4 before HKUST number 16 scored his third personal goal to stop their dry spell. After one last goal, PA went out for Alex going back to the line with David moving to left half. The score was then 20 - 6 and it was time for an acceleration in the rythm of both teams. With a quarter of the match remaining, David continued to prove his speed in fast breaks adding 2 more goals followed by 2 Hans goals where the keeper did not even move as the ball was going through. Number 15 from HKUST was pushing hard to get something in the match and managed to score the last 3 of his team reaching a score of 26 - 9. With 5 minutes left, it was time for Alex who had been unlucky so far to make a difference scoring 3 in 3 minutes plus one from Ulf. David added his 8th on a great performance and Yoann closed the scoring. Overall a strong performance from the AKITA team with an improved efficiency in the shooting and good roation of players. This will be something to built on as opponents in the new year should get stronger with every match. Have a good rest, thank you for everyone's effort this year and happy year end celebrations! Goals: David 8, PA 7, Hans 6, Ulf 4, Alex 3, Yoann 3, Rolf 1.

3rd Win for AKITA against Wong Siu Ching

AKITA comes back from behind to win 18 - 9 (5 - 6) against Wong Siu Ching. In a match full of surprises, AKITA managed to keep its cool to win thanks to a strong second half. For its first Monday match of the competition, it seemed that the AKITA player were still focus on the office rather than on the work to be done. The opponent was unknown and was playing a quite different style from European teams. A lot of quick passes were targeted at wing or line players. Wong Siu Ching scored the first 2 goals thanks to its number 9 from the right wing. Akita did not score in the first 10 minutes because of a lot of lost balls and poor shoots. PA (11) entered for Markus (17) and scored the first goal on a great pass from the half but not without messing up before his first ball by failing to catch a normal pass! the AKITA team did not seem to be in the match up to the 14th minute when Yoann (5) decided to take the initiative and scored despite being fouled, escaping his opponent with a 360 turn. He also scored the 3rd for AKITA 2 minutes later. Score was then 3 -5 and it was the confidence boost the Gwailo team needed. Hans finally found the target scoring 2 more goals before half time using his power to make the space and the shoot. Nevertheless, at half time Wong Siu Ching was still ahead 6-5. After 3 goals in the first half, the French connection took the spotlight. The coaches asked for few technical adjustments and repositioned PA to the half left next to Yoann. This was rapidly proved judicious with 3 more goals (1 penalty) for PA and Yoann adding another one bringing the team back to parity and then building a 2 goal cushion. (9 - 7 on the 6th minute in 2nd Half). Number 12 answered with a penalty but the AKITA Team was now in motion and Hans scored a fined shot piercing through the middle of the defense and leaving the keeper far from the ball. As the Wong Siu Ching defenders were getting higher to try to stop the AKITA halves, it opened some space in the middle of the defense.It was time to get few fast breaks and balls to the line, Alex (9) scored the next 2 goals. The opponents scored another goal but it was then all one way traffic from there ans despite a technical 2 minutes for Lars entering the court as Yoann did not go through the right channel out of the pitch, the score kept widening with PA scoring a lob penalty that would not have been approved by the coaches, Ulf adding his name to the score sheet and Hans closing the score with 2 more goals. Final score of 18 - 9 was hiding a match of 2 halves and it has been a good chance for the AKITA squad to prove its team spirit and learn from its mistakes. Goals: Hans 6, PA 6 (2/2), Yoann 3, Alex 2, Ulf 1.

3rd Match on the way

On Monday December 8th, AKITA plays Wong Siu Ching at Ho Ma Tin. This will be the first match ion this court and as it is on a Monday it may be more challenging to get the full squad on time. Wong Siu Ching is a team that moved between division over the last few years and they should have some experience and a decent pool of players. Please see below the Map to Ho Ma Tin. Closest tube station is Yau Ma Tei. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=de&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=107233192615142964289.00045d42487d88f2aae08&ll=22.311987,114.1802&spn=0.004804,0.009656&z=17

AKITA wins second match 26 - 2 against Sun Hoi Lin

As the pitch was available when the AKITA team arrived prior to the match, this was a good chance to train a little bit before the match. As the opposition was a school boy team upgraded to the senior league, this meant that with an average age over 30 against opponent most likely around 16, the AKITA team was the twice as old. Quite rapidly the result proved subject to little doubt. Nevertheless both teams make sure that they played seriously and as a proof of respect, the AKITA team make sure of not giving any free goal. At the half time score was 14 - 0, AKITA shooting was not as accurate as could have been but defense was showing just the right commitment. in 25 minutes, Markus only needed to do one save on a shoot from the distance. The older team proved that they could still run by conceding zero fast break in the whole match. In the second half, full credit has to be given to number 7 and 13 of the Sun Hoi Lin team as they both managed to score a goal. A deserved reward for their efforts. At the end of the match both teams posed together for a photo demonstrating the good spirit of this encounter. As the AKITA reflected afterwards, after demonstrating they could win against a team half their age, they would relish the challenge to try to do the same against a team double their age. Gols: Hans 5, David 5, Yoann 3, PA 3, Alex 3, Ulf 2, Markus R. 2, Lars 1, Norbert 1, Rolf 1

1st Match and 1st Win for the AKITA Team against HKIE

On Saturday 15th, November the AKITA Handball team defeated the Hong Kong Institute of Education 24 -12 (13 - 5). AKITA started with a strong seven, from left to right: Markus (17), Norbert (10), Ulf (20), Hans (14), Guillaume (3) with Alex (9) on the line and Wan (28) in the goal. The HKIE team won the toss and started with the ball. They lost no time and scored on their first action with a wing shot as the AKITA defense was still settling in. This immediately woke up the blue team that scored 4 unanswered goal with Hans scoring the first AKITA goal ever! After some good combination and cross between the half bases, AKITA was leading 6 - 3 on the 12th minute. The team was finding its rythm and and started few changes. On the right wing, Guillaume was replaced by his own brother PA (11). On the left wing Lars (78) and Yoann (5) entered. The AKITA team was playing it size advantage and only conceded 2 goals more by half time. One on a masked free kick and the other on a penalty. During that time, the goals were still adding with contribution from all positions. It was becoming obvious that the HKIE team was losing concentration as they were under pressure. At the half time, the score was 13 - 5. After a short coaching speech, the AKITA team was back on the pitch and commited to put the match away as soon as possible. Alex (9) was leaving his place to Markus (17) during the attack and Yoann (5) was on the left wing. The score moved to 20 - 6 in 10 minutes with Norbert scoring a powerful shot from the distance when referees were calling for slow play and Yoann answering an HKIE free kick goal by 2 successive hard fought goals. It was time for more changes for the gwailo team with Guillaume (3) back on the court and Rolf (12) getting some minutes under his belt after his ankle injury in the previous training. As the match seemed under control for AKITA the HKIE team tried to push forward engaging as fast as possible and even scoring few goals as the AKITA players were still in the other half. Too little too late here and the AKITA team could continue its turnover with Markus S. (17) participating in his first handball match ever and Lars (78) managing to get the 2nd 2minutes of the Match with 5 minutes to go on a good effort to stop a fast break. Hans (14) closed the scoring for AKITA with his 6th personal goal but as the team was coming back too slowly the HKIE team managed to have 3 players facing Wan with no defender. Wan had made some fine save including some on fast break but this was too many there and the final score was then 24 - 12. As a conclusion, it was a solid performance by AKITA with some good display in attack where goals were well distributed. (Hans 6, PA 5, Norbert 4, Alex 4 including 2/2 on penalties, Markus 2, Yoann 2, Ulf 1). In defense, there was little solution for the HKIE team as soon as the team was able to avoid the fast breaks. This was an ideal start for the AKITA campaign and will hopefully allow for further improvements as the season goes by.

3 days to first match

On Saturday, the AKITA Handball Team will have its first ever official match. We have the chance to play on the same court as our training court and with comparable light conditions. We are playing the last match of the day starting at 8:15pm, we got few pointers on the teams in our league but as the program is in Chinese we don't really now yet which team it is... We will discover them during warm up! Thanks to few training matches with friendly teams, we now have a little bit of experience together but are clearly very far from what we would be expecting. In our last training against YMCA, we managed to get few circulation of balls and goals but also need to communicate more in defense and be more consistent in attack. Focus will be a key element on Saturday if we want to win the match. Also our roster is still moving a little, we hope to have as many people as possible on Saturday to put on the match sheet to ensure we don't get tired. I don't know for you but I can't wait!! P.A. (11)

Our colors

The Akita Handballteam will play this season in blue and yellow shirts, with black shorts. The keepers will wear red/white shirts. So why do we have these colors? There had been a biiiiig discussion among all french and german teammembers, as no party wanted to look like the national-team of the other nation respectively. After several fights, we agreed to chose colors that represent all of us: as we are from Europe, we agreed to take the colors of the European Union, which are, of course, blue and yellow. Sadly, our shirts do not contain any stars. And, as we have a chinese player now, we might be in trouble again, haha. And by the way, all this blue looks very french..... We hope to post some photos of our lovely shirts and all the handsome teammembers very soon! At this place, a big thank you for sponsorship of the shirts to Mr. Ho! Do tse, Sai!

The first Chinese Player!

Wow, now the AKITA Handballteam has its first chinese member! His name is Wan, and he is a Goalie. He played with Ulf the last season, in league 1. After a lot of persuasion- work, he agreed to play with us this year. As the position of Goalie was our weakest point, we are very happy to get a very good second keeper besides our Markus, who, by the way, is injured at the moment. So: welcome and thank you, Wan!

Handball in Hong Kong

Dear people outside Hong Kong or newly arrived, For this post, I thought it would be good to give you an overview of what Handball is like in Hong Kong. Things may be quite different from Europe. The main difference is that here, Handball is an outside sport! Last time I played outside was 14 years ago and I was still a school boy playing with a plastic ball! That is a first shock to play on some sort of cement. The main issue nevertheless is the weather. Our last training got cut short after a an hour or so because of the rain. The toughest is rather when the sun is shining. That then becomes real sport! Even the guys on the bench are sweating heavily and drinking lavishly. Since I started playing here I learned that my handball bag needs to include shoes, socks, a short, a shirt, a towel, a ball, water, a cap and one bottle of suncream!! The cap is a necessary protection on the bench. If there are any international team who want to play some friendlies or a tournament, we think the heat and humidity will be an almost fair home advantage... The rules seems the same even if I seem to struggle counting the same numbers of steps as the referees (Gwailos have long legs, I think that kind of confuses them...). Usually the team with the highest number of goals wins. Also, compared to many european leagues, the amount of defensive contact allowed seems reduced. Is it our fault if the average local guy flies when we hardly brush him?... Considering we are in a lower league, the requirements are more stringents than in places I've played before. Everyone needs the same shirts but alos the same shorts, no exception allowed. At the begining of each match, referrees control the length of every players nails. We have to bring a nail cutter just in case one of our guys need one. Most of the teams in the leagues seems to be constitued of alumni of schools or universities. Many played together as boys and then continues as a group by joining the league. I am sure other players will have a lot to add so I leave it to them. Happy sport P.A.

Akita Handball : Year I

Hello, Guten Tag, Bonjour... Less than 3 months ago some of us freshly arrived from Europe were looking for a Handball club in HK and some others short of players were pondering learning Chinese to play with the local teams... Thanks to the help of the Hong Kong Federation, the hard work of Ulf and the networking of everyone we were able to set-up a team in record time with players from different nationality (beer drinkers and frog eaters being over represented...) We are now facing our first season with a first Match on the 15th, November. Our recruitment is still open and new players are welcome to join us on our monday training. In particular, we are still looking for a Goalkeeper to put some friendly competitive pressure on Markus our number 1 choice (more commonly called Rolf when wearing an Akita shirt...). If you are a keeper or just like pain and want to play in the HK league, this is your chance and just post a comment on the blog. From now on, everyone in the team will be able to provide contribution to the blog, we will post results and news and hopefully get a large number of new recruits. Keep fit P.A. (Number 11)