The Dutch game 'korfball' for dummies.

A popular and typical sport. It is known in multiple European countries but in the Netherlands it is popular and the Dutch korfball team is the number one of the world. Nice fact, the Netherlands have won each world championship since 1978 except the one of 1991 where the Netherlands were runner-ups.

Korfball in Dutch ‘korfbal’ is one of the few mixed-gender sports. In every squad there should be four females and four males. On the lower levels of korfball for youth it is allowed to have one or two players two play as other gender, so a boy could play as a girl and the other way around.

Obviously, the goal of korfball is to score more points than your opponent. It is played indoors and outdoors, from October on the competition is indoors and in April outdoors matches are played. The court consists of two halves, both a square from 20 by 20 meters.

Four of each team, two girls and two boys, start off in each halve. The first attacking four will score at one side of the pitch and the first defensive four will defend the korf  and prevent the opponent from scoring. After two goals, the attacking and defensive four will switch sides, so the attackers will become defenders and the defenders will try to score.

 

A point is scored when the ball goes entirely through the korf, this can be done by a shot or by the typical korfball-run called a ‘doorloopbal’. It could be compared with a lay-up from basketball but it is slightly different. You take the balls in your hands, with your hands under the ball and you swing it gently up the korf. You should try and gently lay it in. 

Korfball is a real team sport, you are not allowed to walk with the ball so accurate passing and positioning is required. Another thing is the defence, a shot or doorloop could be defended by putting your hand up in the direction of the ball. If you are within one arm-length of your opponent who shot, the shot is defended and the defensive side my try and take the ball to the attackers.

Just as any other sports fouls are not allowed, we have fouls as travelling, kicked ball violation and other intentional fouls like illegal blocking, which is for example blocking from behind. There are three different kinds of punishments for the attacking team. First of all there is a “spelhervatting”, the ball is given to the team on which the foul is made and they have four seconds to bring it back into play, this is also used when the ball is out of bounds. Further more korfball knows the “vrije bal” or free ball, which is on 2½ meters away from the korf and the ball has to be passed first. The hardest punishment is the “strafworp” or penalty-throw. From 2½ meters one member of the team may shoot without any defense.

I hope you now understand a little bit more about korfball! It is fun and intense, it’s imago has degraded which is a shame. I think everyone should at least have tried it or have seen it on the telly or in real life.