History
Korfball was invented in 1902 by Nico Broekhuysen, an Amsterdam schoolteacher who wanted boys and girls to play side by side on teams.
Broekhuysen was inspired by seeing a demonstration of basketball during a visit to a school in Sweden. Actually, it was a version of basketball adapted for women by Clara Baer and Senda Berenson, in which players were confined to specific zones throughout the game. The Swedes called the sport ringböll because they didn't use baskets. The goal was a bare metal ring at the top of a pole.
Written rules weren't available, so Broekhuysen devised his own adaptation of the sport when he returned to Amsterdam, supplementing what he'd seen with ideas of his own. He called the new game korfball (korf is the Dutch for "basket").
Korfball spread so quickly to other schools in Holland that a national governing body, the Dutch Korfball Association, was founded in 1903. More gradually, it spread to neighboring Belgium and to Dutch colonies of Indonesia, Surinam, and the Dutch Antilles.
The 1920 Olympics were held in Antwerp, Belgium, where korfball was a demonstration sport. In 1923, the two countries played the first international match and the following year they founded the International Korfball Bureau.
Korfball was a demonstration sport again at the 1928 Olyimpics in Amsterdam. The International Korfball Federation (IKF) was founded five years later at a meeting in Antwerp, but there were still only two member countries, Belgium and the Netherlands.
In 1946, the IKF sent a team on a promotional tour of northern Europe, which awoke some interest. When the first world championship tournament was held in 1978, eight countries participated. By 1985, there were 15 countries in the IKF. Korfball was added to the World Games program that year. The IKF currently has 34 member countries.
A European team came to the United States on a promotional tour in 1976, leading to the establishment of the U. S. Korfball Federation (USKF) in 1978. After 1996, though, the federation became inactive. Two former players, Steve Spalding and Rebecca Shields, tried to revive the USKF in 2002 but didn't find much interest.
Another European team is scheduled to visit the U. S. in October and November of 2005 to promote the sport.
How It's Played
Korfball is played by two teams of eight players each, four male and four female. The playing area, which is 30 by 60 meters outdoors and 40 by 20 meters indoors, is divided into two equal zones.
At each end is a pole, positioned 1/6 of the area's total length from the end line. (That is, 10 meters for the outdoor version, 6 2/3 meters for the indoor version.) A bottomless, cylindrical basket is attached to each pole. The basket has an inner diameter of 39-41 centimeters and the top edge is 3.5 meters above the playing surface. The ball is the standard No. 5 soccer ball, 27-28 inches in circumference.
(For comparison, the regulation men's basketball is 29.5 to 30 inches in circumference; the basket is 45 to 45.7 centimeters in diameter, and the top edge is 10 feet, or 3.05 meters, above the floor.)
So far, it sounds as if korfball might be almost the same as basketball, but there are some major differences. As in the version of women's basketball that Broekhuysen saw in Sweden, players are confined to zones. Specifically, four players (two male, two female) from each team have to remain in the offensive zone, the other four in the defensive zone.
A player cannot dribble the ball, carry it, or steal it from an opponent and taking a shot is permitted only when the player isn't defended. Moving without the ball to get free for a shot is therefore essential.
A player is defended when a defender is nearer to the basket and within an arm's reach. A defender must be of the same sex as the attacking player.
After every two goals, players in the offensive zone move to the defensive zone and vice versa so that every player gets a chance to shoot and to defend.
A game is made up of two 30-minute halves.
