What is Korfball - Beginners Guide

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1. The Team
A korfball team consists of 8 players; 4 boys and 4 girls. A team is split into two divisions, each consisting of 2 boys and 2 girls. You can only mark someone of the same sex; otherwise you will give away a penalty.

A korfball court is divided into two halves, each of which will have one division from each team. At the start of a game, one division will be in attack, whilst the other will be in defence. Every two goals (not necessarily by the same team), the divisions swap ends, so the division that was in attack becomes defence and vice versa.

The aim is to score goals. A shot on goal will only count if the attacker is not being actively defended. Active defending is when the defender is within touching distance of the attacker as they take a shot and they have their hand up trying to mark the ball (they must be looking at the ball and the hand must be above the ball). If the shot is defended then the ball will be given to the defending team at the place the shot was taken.

2. Positions
There are no set positions (i.e. goal shooter etc), everyone can play every position on the court (although you must stay in your divisions). However, there are two main positions that you will hear being talked about; collect & feed.

Collect – this is the position held by one of the attackers, where they are standing under the post, ready to collect any missed shots. The collect should have their arm up, ready to ‘collect’ the ball.

Feed – this is the position held by one of the attackers, where they have the ball, somewhere near the post and are ready to feed it out to the other attackers. They must face out towards to attackers.

The feed position quite often develops from the collect position. If a shot is put up and it doesn’t go in, the collect should catch it and step into the feed position

3. Types of move
When players run around in circles or even run in a direct line across the court, this serves only to tire the attackers. Defenders can easily stick to attackers who move like this, and generally have less distance to run. Therefore attackers must veer to create space on court, to minimise the amount of effort they expel and to make it more difficult for the defender to mark them.

Veer – the veer is the main move used in korfball to create space and get away from a defender. It is angular movement (rather like the sections of a cake). The angle of the veer (or size of the piece of cake!) should be varied.

4. Types of shot
There are two main types of shot in korfball; a long shot and a running in shot.

Long shot – this is generally a more stationary shot taken from anywhere in the attacking half.

Running in shot – is as the name suggests a shot taken whilst running in towards the post.

5. Calls
You may hear defenders calling instructions to each other. Often the defenders can’t see what is happing in other areas of the court, so these calls are important to ensure everyone knows what is happening.

Tight – is the call that a defender should make when their opponent is in the ‘collect’ position. This call is to let the rest of their team know that the opposition have a collect in place and so should stick tight to their player, so as to not allow them to put a shot up.

Feed – is the call that a defender should make when their opponent is in the ‘feed’ position. This call is usually preceded by the sex of the feed, such as ‘girl feed’ or ‘boy feed’. This lets defenders know that the attackers will try to run past them for a ‘running in shot’.

Party – is the call that a defender makes when they intercept the ball. This call is to let the rest of their team know that they now have the ball.

Switch – is the call that a defender would make if they need to switch to mark the other attacker of the same sex. The switch call can only be used within the same sex as you are only allowed to mark someone of the same sex. It is usually used under the post when an attacker is taking a shot (generally a running in shot).

If one defender loses their attacker (is run around) the other defender of the same sex can call switch, and then mark this opponent. The original defender must then mark their team mate’s attacker.

See you – is the call that a defender would make to their team mate of the same sex, when they can see their team mate and would be able to switch to defend the attacker, should they get past the defender.