Others recall seeing names like Andrew Ettingshausen,who was in the twilight of his NRL career with Cronulla,future Sydney Swans coach Paul Roos,and another NBL veteran in Dean Uthoff. All were invited,but none are believed to have participated. One media report claimed the Olympic carrot had even been dangled in front of AFL legend Tony Lockett. McGaw swears there were a couple of water polo players,too.
What's not in dispute is that McGaw and Langford stuck with it the longest and showed the most promise.
"Look,mate,it was easy,"McGaw said.
![Mark McGaw fronted a'demonstration'for the media at the Sydney Football Stadium's indoor cricket centre after agreeing to train with the Australian men's team.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/f8dc0096619bcc445bfa10a08b01b19434a3541a)
Mark McGaw fronted a 'demonstration' for the media at the Sydney Football Stadium's indoor cricket centre after agreeing to train with the Australian men's team.Credit:Tim Clayton
"The ability to throw a ball is the only technical side of it. I was always good at cricket ... I had great hand-eye co-ordination and I just took to it. Most of the guys did,really - they're professional athletes,whereas the guys playing handball just loved the game. You're looking at a different mindset.
"Great game,don't get me wrong. The technical aspect of the rules and all that,if someone was going to be selected,they would have had to really worked hard on because there's a lot of rules and stuff. But jeez,it was fun."
Not everyone was loving it,though. For Australia's handball loyalists,the sport they had dedicated their lives to was at risk of becoming a joke.
Taip Ramadani,who had been part of the national set-up since the early 90s,said the AHF had initially kept the team in the dark about the Seven deal and what it entailed.
Upon returning from a trip to Europe early in 1998,they learned through newspaper articles that the federation had opened the Olympic door to retired athletes from other sports. Already threatened by an influx of accomplished handballers who had became naturalised Australians after the breakout of the Yugoslav Wars,they were now feeling selection pressure from multiple directions.
"It was all secretive - nobody really knew what was going on,no one had details. A lot of us were just speculating between one another and we were feeling the stress,"Ramadani said."We heard there was a camp that had been set up for them and they'd been training secretly - we'd just heard rumours after rumours after rumours.
"We thought,'here we go,they're going to ditch us now.'"
![Taip Ramadani is one of Australia's few true handball diehards.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/9f29418dda13bc8e4b978d83e78a019f6d50a618)
Taip Ramadani is one of Australia's few true handball diehards.Credit:Steve Baccon
When the real handballers were finally introduced to the wannabes,there was palpable tension. But Peled,the AFH president,laid down the law to anyone in the squad who had misgivings - mindful of the dazzling possibilities on offer for handball if a former AFL or NRL player was to make it to Sydney 2000.
"In handball worldwide,in the high level,every team has got one or two defence specialists,"Peled said."They could definitely fit into that. They were big enough,they were fit enough - they could fill that role excellent.
"I told the players,the best players available will play. Fight for your spot. It's the same in any other sport."
For a period between a few weeks and a couple of months - nobody is quite sure how long the project ran for - the retired footy players gave what they had to the cause.
"You could tell who the handballers were and who the old footballers or basketballers were,"Langford said.
"Having said that,we weren't too shabby in terms of picking it up and showing good ball sense,team skills and a physical presence. It had a bit of promise to begin with. There was a plan that we'd get good,and then do a couple of tournaments overseas and travel a bit."
It dawned on Ramadani after a scratch match at training one day that the incumbents in the Australian team were really under no threat at all.
"With all due respect,they were great athletes but handball has some really specific skills that take years to master. They lacked the basics,"he said.
"They were quite fit and physically strong -[Langford] was one of the better ones. Mark McGaw,when he hit me once,it was like a train running into you. I got hit really hard and I asked the coach,'do you mind if I get subbed out,I'm really not comfortable playing this game any more',because it became like a circus,really."
Eventually,the idea began to run out of steam for a number of reasons. Firstly,the idea of an ex-footy player being given a rails run to the Olympics never quite sat right with Keogh - especially if it came at the expense of a handball lifer. Players felt there was a clear conflict of interest at hand.
"They'd been training all their lives and someone was going to get picked to jump on the Olympic bandwagon and not have to do all the work they'd done,"McGaw said."They were,as my son calls it,butthurt. I sat in on the meeting,because I was one of the ones who looked like was going to go,and they just had these issues."
Secondly,there weren't enough ex-athletes invested - and the ones who were weren't invested enough.
"It just got to a point where they go,'OK,well here's the program. Now you have to train,take time off work',all that sort of stuff,"said Langford.
"It wasn't like I was afraid of hard work but I'd just retired from 18 years of this. I had three young kids. I remember going to a couple of sessions at Sydney Uni,rocking up and I was asking myself,what the hell am I doing here?"
Keogh said it ultimately landed in the"too hard"basket.
"Chris and Sparkles had full-time jobs and other things,there was no money in it,they're used to being professional sportspeople,"he said."Seven,while they liked the idea,they weren't going to spend a fortune on doing it. In some ways,it was probably appropriate because there were people who played the game seriously and had Olympic aspirations."
Keogh did manage to leave one lasting legacy in handball,though - he helped arrange for Tom York,a long-serving basketball administrator who managed the Boomers at Atlanta 1996,to come in as the team's Olympic manager and provide some elite expertise.
The first major task that fell to York,who came in just as the Seven experiment was winding to a close,was to chaperone the team on a tour of Hungary. Almost straight away he could see how much work needed to be done to bring them up to the required level.
![Taip Ramadani playing for Australia against Sweden at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/a67fbe2671382d366d35aedde125dc85fd7c95e0)
Taip Ramadani playing for Australia against Sweden at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.Credit:Steve Baccon
"I arrived in Budapest and the next morning we're having breakfast,"he said.
"The guys are eating salamis and cheeses and I'm thinking,'that's not healthy. That's not what players should be eating.'So I complained about it and they changed the menu,gave us more fruit.
"They were playing in borrowed singlets from the soccer federation. When we came back to Australia,I bought them beautiful uniforms for training,in better colours,with better balls - made them feel like they're special.
"I had to raise a lot of money to be able to give them proper training. I got a physio involved,a conditioner,and a psychologist because they were losing all the time. Little things like that. It paid off."
In 1999,handball's international governing body recognised that Australia needed more help and handed the men's team a berth at the world titles in Egypt. They lost all five of their games,and then lost another three when they returned home for an Olympic test event,but the standard of their play was improving.
The Australian team,unsurprisingly,went winless in Sydney,losing to Sweden,Spain,Slovenia,Tunisia and France before falling just short,26-24,in a gallant final stand against Cuba. Initially overwhelmed by what Ramadani described as the"grandeur"of the Games,Australia probably surpassed expectations.
"For us it was a fantastic experience,"said Ramadani,who is now the head coach of Kosovo."We went from absolute nobodies,we were completely anonymous all the way leading up to the Olympic Games - and then suddenly we were thrown into the limelight.
"The one[thing] I remember really vividly is we started our first game against Sweden - packed crowd,atmosphere was intense. And the commentator asked the crowd if anyone had watched a handball game before.
"No one had. Only five per cent put their hands up."
![Handball was played in front of raucous crowds at Sydney 2000.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/7221a756dd291551827a8a0285693cccb11d90eb)
Handball was played in front of raucous crowds at Sydney 2000.Credit:Steve Baccon
But by the end of the Games,handball had a legion of new fans. Tickets,at $19,were the cheapest of the Olympics. Those who took a punt were fascinated by the fast-paced,frenetic nature of the game. In schoolyards across the country,kids abandoned the traditional version of handball and tried out the one they saw on TV.
There was an explosion of interest at grassroots level post-Olympics - Ramadani recalls finding out more than 8000 phone calls were made to the AHF,but the federation did not have the infrastructure to cope with it.
To this day,handball remains the ultimate minnow sport in Australia. Neither the men nor women have qualified for the Olympics again.
"But from an achievement point of view this is a real,classic Olympic story,"York said.
"Players who have no money,no government support,who gave up a ridiculous amount of time to get themselves fit,prepare themselves,help me to fundraise ... they sacrificed a lot. The guys were so grateful for everything we did for them. Not one player got a cent,let me assure you. They improved from being a nothing to a very competitive team."
Seven's idea might have changed the trajectory for the sport,ever so slightly. Looking back,Keogh says it's a"tragedy"that it wasn't seen all the way through,and Peled agrees.
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"Other countries did it - if they were there with their full hearts they could definitely make it,"he said."It's a good sport,but rugby in Australia is too strong. Unfortunately it's very hard to introduce a new sport to Australia because the rugby codes are stopping everyone. It was terrific help from Channel Seven to give us quite a lot of money. It's a shame they didn't keep giving us a little bit more."
As for McGaw,perhaps unsurprisingly,he still reckons he could have made it to the Olympics.
"I saw Damian walking past one day,many months later,"he said."I said'what happened?'He said,'it just fell over - they're too hard to deal with'or something.
"What they didn't realise was the amount of publicity they would have got out of it,to enhance the game and their enrolment rate. The whole idea was to give handball a leg-up with getting people in the juniors and growing it.
"There's so much the professional athletes could have brought. It was exciting,it was fun ... but they lost an opportunity. They f----ed it up."
Read theBest Games Ever series.
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