By Marcos Arizpeleta

What better way to close out the spookiest week of the year than with a weekend packed with handball action! All our teams were busy, with our men’s, women’s, and U19 squads competing in games over the weekend.

We experienced a bit of everything this weekend, from defeats to thrilling victories and nail-biting draws. It was an intense handball weekend for the Blue family.

Let’s start with the immense effort and competitive spirit our Men’s 1 team  demonstrated in their match against Islington 1. Our Brazilian back, Matheus Samora, was the MVP of that game. The clash got off to a rough start, with what Samora described as a “terrible” first half. Chelsea was behind 7 goals at halftime. According to Samora, the team needed “a bit more intensity in defence and accuracy when shooting”. However, he’s proud of the team’s resilience, after a wake-up call from the coach, they managed to fight back and finish with a 29-29 draw, leaving them with the feeling that they could have even won. “I believe it’s just a matter of time before we get into shape and achieve the results we want,” he adds.

On the other hand, our second men’s division team, coached by Costas Karayiannis and Florin Ginghina, faced a tough match and ultimately lost against Islington 2. According to Costas, after “another slow start” the Blues conceded four goals in the first four minutes.
They managed to close the gap to a two-goal difference later in the first half but could not maintain this momentum, finishing the half with a score of 17-13. The second half saw a more balanced game in terms of goals and intensity, but “a couple of suspensions where we were down to four players for two minutes” prevented Chelsea from closing in on the score. Costas also noted that in the final ten minutes, “we ran out of energy and never managed to catch up with them.” The final score was 26-22 in favour of the Rats, who had a solid performance overall.

Both of our women’s teams also played against Islington, with Spaniard Carlos García coaching both squads. Unfortunately, both teams suffered defeats to the north London club. Team One lost by a six-goal margin, with a final score of 25-19, while Team Two faced a larger deficit, ending at 30-19. “Islington is a new team in the Premier League, but they’ve built two very strong squads with solid signings” Carlos remarked about the Rats. When asked about Team One, he added, “We’ve lost several players from last year and are in a rebuilding phase. We also had a sensitive injury early in the game, which affected the team.”
Carlos noted that the turning point for Team One was Islington’s quick identification and neutralization of their strengths: “From that moment, the game was decided.”. It’s worth mentioning that Team Two’s objective this year is to focus on learning and enjoying the game, as the team is largely made up of newcomers. Despite their inexperience, they faced a strong Islington 2 team, giving it their best.

The U19 games brought us the best news from this action-packed weekend, with victories over the Bucks Mavericks (17-31) and the Midlands team, Nottingham. Our Hispanic-German back and centre, Gabriel Zinn, was the MVP in both matches. “I think we played two good games. Although we were tired for the second one against Nottingham, we still managed to play pretty well” he said. “We can be proud of our attacking in both games; we’ve improved our intensity and speed compared to last year.” However, he noted that there’s still room for improvement, adding, “We could work on our defence, be more cohesive, and recover the ball faster after conceding to create more counter-attack opportunities.“

Only our Men’s Team One will be playing this coming weekend. The match will take place on Sunday, November 10th, in an away game at Stoke Mandeville Stadium against Oxford. The rest of our teams, including Men’s Team Two, both Women’s teams, and the U19 team, will have a well-deserved break this weekend.