Chronicle

Can you imagine a time when there was no handball team at Team Munich?

Neither do we!

Here you can find out more about the history of our fantastic handball team - from the beginning to the present - and how we got here.

The beginning

It all started with the EuroGames 2004 in Munich. As the hosts did not have their own handball team, the EuroGames organisers put together a team of LGBT and straight players for the competition. The games were a success - for Munich, for Team Munich and also for the brand new handball team - we won the silver medal! And so at the beginning 2005 the handball division of Team München e. V. was founded.

In the first year, we started with a small group - consisting of just 2 women and 4 men - but this group already grew well within the first year and has since been able to expand further. 2006 at the LGBT handball tournament in Copenhagen. This was the start of many great friendships with numerous European LGBTQ handball teams.

The LGBT tournament became the annual highlight and focus of the training sessions. 2007 Frankfurt hosted the tournament, where we met many friends from the previous year.

After 3 successful years, a lack of players led to a break of 2008 until 2010.

The comeback

2010 we resumed weekly training sessions in our small hall with a few old and a few new players and competed in various annual tournaments. 2014 we travelled to France for the grandiose TIP (Tournament International Paris). We experienced our second EuroGames 2015 in beautiful Stockholm.

New alignment

We got a real motivational kick after the LGBT Games 2016 in Amsterdam! We had a lot of fun and our women's team even won!

Over a few visits to the beer garden, we talked about the future of the team and our goal slowly became clearer: to play in the league! The strategy was to advertise specifically to get experienced players and apply for a large hall in the city.

We quickly realised that our strategy would work when the number of players rose sharply, even though we 2017 had to compete in the LGBTQ handball tournament in Budapest with only 6 players. Thankfully, the Hungarians helped us out with players and we had a great time!

Within 18 months, we were able to double our number of players, and by the beginning of 2018 thirty active players.

In summer 2018 the GayGames were organised in Paris, where we were unfortunately only represented as an incomplete team due to high registration fees. This summer, the team management also grew by a few players and the decision to register our team in the district league for 2019/2020 was put into action. In the 2nd half of the year 2018 and the first half of 2019 we did a lot to prepare for the league and to get a "normal" hall, which we were able to do in January. 2019 was also successful.

In July 2019 we took part in the annual LGBTQ Euro Handball Tournament which was organised by SSL Vorspiel in Berlin this year. With 7th place out of 14 teams, it was our best tournament since 2004.

The current situation

As you can see, a lot has happened since we started in 2004 with 6 permanent players. In summer 2024, we have 32 male and 8 female players - and the trend is rising!

We would like to thank everyone who was and is part of Team München Handball - especially those who were involved as coaches and those who were fully committed to organisational matters such as planning tournaments.

Without each and every one of you, we would not be where we are today! A big thank you also goes to Team München e.V. for their ongoing support.