Talk:Australian handball

Merger into Wall handball?

It seems to me that this article and the articles on American handball and Gaelic handball are all really about the same sport and that the games played in the US and Australia all originated from the Irish game when they were brought there by Irish immigrants. I think the three articles should be merged into a single article called "Wall handball". There's a precedent for using the name "wall handball" since it appears on the official site of the World Handball Council. I'm not knowledgeable enough to say for sure or not if the rules and history of the sport in the three countries are different enough to justify there being three articles for them, though. I'd like to know what everyone else thinks. Sky Blu 2 (talk) 20:45, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposal Already Researched: Found 'Negative'

Thanks, Sky Blue. When we were first setting up this article, the same possibility was postulated, but consensus between the three of us involved decided that although the Gaelic game had been the initial prompt, the games, deviations in rules that developed over time and the 'culture' of handball among the threee nations was quite distinct indeed. There is no world governing body and the only time the three even vaguely allude to one another is when it is decided to hold a world championship: otherwise, the games all have their own rule and other distinctions.[[121.219.58.207 (talk) 13:14, 11 July 2010 (UTC)]]

Yes, but even if there is some divergence in rules in the games played in the three countries, I still don't think it entirely precludes them as being seen as just variations of the same sport. Take a sport like tennis, for example. It's played on hard, clay and grass courts, it's played in best-of-three and best-of-five formats, it's played as a singles as well as a doubles game, but it's always considered to be "tennis". Basketball, too, is played with slightly different rules across various leagues and levels. And as you said, the handball organizations in the three countries do occasionally collaborate on things like the world championships and maintain a loose affiliation with each other. It's also probably worth noting that the Encyclopædia Britannica(at least the edition that I have access to) has only a single article on "handball". I think that merging the three articles should still be kept in mind as a possibility for the future, or at least just finding a way to link them somehow. -Sky Blu 2 (talk) 05:23, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Sky Blu. We have really quite thoroughly been over the exact differences with reference to comparing this with other sports - they really cannot meet the same analogy as tennis or basketball or soccer or international hockey, or any such. These other games have a world governing, or world authoritative, body. The 3 separate nations engaging forms of 'handball' have no such auspices. They have formed completely distinctly of one another over the past 150 years and independently run their own competitions; they even use different court/field dimensions, etc., unlike the other sports you have mentioned. Thanks for your input anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.169.121 (talk) 06:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)