Be careful, danger of reading stuck! If you just want to fill a commercial break with this book, you could miss the connection. Anyone who has leafed through “The Golden Book of German Handball” will not be able to find it again so quickly.
That’s also because of the photos. The noble portrait-format work by journalist Erik Eggers offers a lavishly illustrated overview of more than 100 years of handball: Hein Dahlinger in front of sold-out stands in field handball, Manfred Hofmann’s knee against the GDR, the unconscious Joachim Deckarm, the 2007 world champions with the Heiner brand stuck on them -Beards: Eggers leaves little out of this chronicle, including those who are interested in club handball, GDR handball or women’s handball.
Erik Eggers: The golden book of German handball. Verlag Eriks Buchregal 2023, 376 pages, 44.90 euros. : Image: Verlag Eriks Buchregal
He highlights the negative aspects, uses the example of the 2007 World Cup to criticize the weak marketing of the German Handball Federation (DHB) in many places, describes the constant semi-profitability in women’s handball, deals with the refereeing scandal of 2009, and worries about his favorite sport itself: “Lack of internationality threatens handball as a whole in the long term.”
A bit of humor would have been good
In many places Eggers presents his view of things as the only permissible one, although one could come to different assessments. Here the author is both a chronicler and an interpreter and leaves no room for doubt about his interpretation. The 376-page book would have benefited from a bit of humor and lightness at this point. The enormous depth of detail, which extends to the description of individual actions, the many contemporary witnesses quoted and the variety of topics make the book a classic “Do you remember?” work: Where was I on February 5, 1978, when the “Miracle of Copenhagen” happened, the Federal Republic of Germany became world champions?
In the anecdotal part, Eggers shows that villages and small towns were and are the nucleus of German handball. With a pub as a warming campfire where players and fans gather: Martin Schwalb raves about the minced steaks in the “Grüner Wald” inn in Hofheim-Wallau (“simply world class”), and Holger Thiesen talks about how he works in the Handewitter local Holger Clausen got his food for free.
That sounds ordinary, it doesn’t report anything from the glossy world of global sport as we know it today – but that’s what Eggers calls the core brand of German handball: approachability. After every Bundesliga game, the professionals still stand patiently among their fans for selfies and autographs.
Thomas Klemm Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 8 Marc Heinrich Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 2 Jürgen Kalwa, New York Published/Updated: ,
In this respect, this book shows how deeply rooted handball is in the regions, how much identity it creates there: In Magdeburg or Flensburg, everything about the SCM or the SG is part of the texture that still holds this society together.
Erik Eggers: The golden book of German handball. Verlag Eriks Buchregal 2023, 376 pages, 44.90 euros.
