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handball


a schoolyard game played with a tennis ball batted by the hands on a court drawn on the asphalt with a piece of sandstone or chalk. Compare handball, four-square, king ping, KP. Also, 2-square.

Contributor's comments: Played handball using tennis balls on school playground concrete slabs in Taree - mid north coast NSW. Ball had to bounce once in each square as it was passed.

Contributor's comments: Currently in the navy and I was talking to a fellow queenslander about how we played handball and wallball. Sure enough, the sandgropers and mexicans were wondering what we were talking about and we had to explain that handball is when the tennisball is bounced from square to square from ace, queen, king and dunce, although when more people played, they were in nameless squares though I remember jack being used often.

Contributor's comments: In Brisbane in the fifties at Christian Brothers schools handball was a sport very like squash except that the ball was hit by hand rather than by racquet and the court was open air without a back wall.