Collaboration between the CMA and ASM Handball

The history of modern Handball has always been closely linked to the educational and school world.

It is in fact two Danish physical education and sports teachers, one at Nyborg municipal school, Rasmus Nicolaj Ernst, and the other, Holger Nielsen, at Ordrup primary school, who are the teachers. creators. The first, a former soldier, had as early as 1897 experimented with a hand ball game for which he had drawn up the first rules in a handwritten manner. The second, fencer, shooter and athlete, Olympic medalist in three disciplines at the Athens Olympic Games in 1896, had done the same in 1898 because the school playground being too small, the students were prohibited to play football there. We owe him the codification of the first official rules of this new sport in a book published in 1906: “Vejledning i håndbold (Handball Guide)”. (1)

In Monaco, it was a physical education monitor, Robert Grüter (left), who gathered around him in 1961 the team of founders of the Handball section of AS Monaco Omnisport, wanted by the general president of the then association, Mr. Raymond Sangiorgio.

With a rich human and sporting history spanning more than half a century, the ASM Handball section, today chaired by Eric Perodeau and whose general manager is Xavier Mangematin, remains very present in the educational world where, s tying to be a training club, it defends the ideal of clean sport.

In this regard, its multi-year “Club Project” includes a vast educational and social component which leads it to collaborate with the Department of National Education, Youth and Sports and to work in direct contact with the school environment in Monaco but also in France. It thus intervenes in particular within the framework of the new educational activities of various municipalities around Monaco and organizes mini handball tournaments in schools on several bordering municipalities or even further afield such as Menton or Sospel.

In accordance with one of the seven fundamental values ​​of sport, namely the development of sportsmanship which consists in being loyal and equitable with others, to refuse all forms of cheating including doping, to remain humble in victory and worthy in defeat, the section has long been committed to fair and just sport.

Already collaborating with the Monaco Sports Center on educational training for young people focusing in particular on addictive behavior, nutrition and doping, it was natural that the Monegasque Anti-Doping Committee, of which the Center is a privileged partner, and the section, like the Monegasque Handball Federation, are coming together to unite their efforts in the service of this cause of general interest.

The first concretization of this collaboration took place on March 2, 2018.

Inspired by the model set up by the Committee with the Collège Saint-Charles within the framework of interdisciplinary practical teaching which consists of alternating information and dialogue modules interspersed with phases of play, the Committee, represented by Ms. Doctor Muriel Tonelli, head of his Prevention, Training, Education commission, and Mrs. Andrea Alessio, Permanent Secretary of the Committee, organized during the internship held at the Espace Saint-Antoine awareness sessions which concerned 28 children born between 2003 and 2010 inclusive, whether or not they are club licensed.

In this case, the 14 young people in the 9-11 age group and the 14 young people in the 12-14 age group participated very actively in these anti-doping modules in a good communicative mood.

At the end of the course, in addition to the information brochures that were distributed to them, the children were given the now essential freesbe in the colors of the Committee.

The Committee can only express the wish that these young people come to fill the Monegasque pool of handball players. Enriched with a club culture and an identity that responds to the value of solidarity that sport carries, perhaps they will one day be able to be part of the flagship team of ASM Handball composed mainly of players trained at the club and defend with it the colors of the Principality in the competitions where it is engaged. (2)

1. Dansk Idraets Forbund's Forlag (Danish Sport Confederation Publishing), Copenhagen 1906. 2. For more information, see the section website here