Handball appeared in the 1920s and 1930s as field handball or 11-aside handball. At the same time, a similar new sports game called Czech handball (or hazena) came from Czechia. It was played on smaller grass fields (48×32 metres) with 7 players on each team. Varaždin Grammar School students were the first to practise field handball, and in 1930, they played their first match among themselves at the encouragement of their physical education teacher Zvonimir Suligoj. Vladimir Janković, a physical education teacher at the Zagreb Grammar School, gave a similar impetus to the development of handball in the early 1930s, and soon handball was regularly played among Zagreb high school students. Physical education teacher Stanko Tončić encouraged the playing of handball among Bjelovar high school students in the late 1930s. After graduation, former high school students joined sports clubs, so handball sections were founded in Zagreb clubs Građanski, Concordia, Šparta, Meteor, etc. in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Representatives of the Zagreb handball sections formed a handball committee, which organized the first Zagreb Championship in 1940, while Zagreb high school students also played the first international friendly handball matches. Czech handball or hazena, the Czech version of handball played predominantly by women, was also widespread and popular between the two world wars. The first Czech handball rules were translated into Croatian in the early 1920s, and several Czech handball sections were founded in high schools and in existing clubs in Slavonski Brod, Osijek, Vukovar, Varaždin, Zagreb, Nova Gradiška, etc. National Czech Handball Championships were organized from 1925 to 1938. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia national Czech handball team, composed mainly of players from Concordia Croatian Sports Club (Czech handball section, many-time Kingdom of Yugoslavia Champions in the 1930s), achieved the first international success of Croatian sports ever when they won the gold medal and the World Czech Handball Champion title at the 4th World Women’s Games in London in 1934. After the Second World War, Czech handball blended with handball in the early 1950s, and many Czech handball players became involved in women’s handball. Small-field handball or indoor handball, that is, handball as we know it today (field 40×20 metres and 7 players on each team) appeared in the early 1950s, when the rules of this version of handball, popular at the time in Scandinavian countries and Germany, were translated and the first competitions began to be held. Field handball was increasingly suppressed. Field handball competitions were held until the end of the 1950s; after then, only small-field or indoor handball was played, a larger number of clubs were gradually founded throughout Croatia, and national small-field handball leagues were played continuously in men’s and women’s divisions from 1953 on.
The Croatian Handball Federation operated during the Independent State of Croatia from 1941. The Handball Federation of Croatia was founded in 1948. The umbrella handball organization changed its name to the Croatian Handball Federation in 1992, when it became a member of the European and International Handball Federations (EHF and IHF).
The best results in the men’s division were achieved by Partizan Handball Club from Bjelovar (European Champions Cup 1972), Zagreb Handball Club (European Champions Cup 1992 and 1993) and Metković Handball Club (EHF Cup 2000), and in the women’s division by Podravka Vegeta Handball Club from Koprivnica (European Champions Cup in 1996), Osijek Women’s Handball Club (Cup Winners’ Cup in 1982 and 1983), Dalma Women’s Handball Club from Split (Cup Winners’ Cup 1984), Trešnjevka Women’s Handball Club from Zagreb (IHF Cup 1982) and Lokomotiva Women’s Handball Club from Zagreb (IHF Cup 1991 and EHF Challenge Cup 2017).
Croatian handball players participated in all the successes of the national handball teams of Yugoslavia. Standing out among them are the men’s gold medal at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich and the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and the women’s gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Croatia’s men’s national handball team won 3 Olympic medals, two of which were gold (Atlanta 1996 and Athens 2004) and 5 world championships medals, of which 1 was gold (Portugal 2003).