Chronology of the game

1983: Eureka! The idea of Palmball came to Abdelmalek Bouhadjera while he was playing a game of table tennis with his brothers.

1984: First drawing and first prototype of Palmball at

Birmingham University, England.

1985: Patent application filed.

1985: Palmball was selected and represented Nottingham

University at the first British National Conference, "Graduate Entreprise", held at Cranfield Business School, North London.

1986: Second prototype. The first official practicing sessions were held at NottinghamUniversity Sports' Centre. The same year a video explaining the components of the apparatus and the rules of the game was made by a company called Insight Productions which was owned by both my supervisor Dr Martin Waller from Mining Department and a PhD student, Mark Carter.

1989: The third prototype was made. The counter was designed on the assumption that the scoring should be made very simple: if the player hits the target itscores one point, if the ball falls outside the target area the score is zero.

1989: Participated with Palmball at a small-business

exhibition, which was held at Basingstoke, England.

1989: The project of Palmball put on ice for the first time.

1994: The first official tournament was held at Jijel University, Algeria. An important rule was added:

Players must stand at a fixed distance from the wall.

The first world records were established for the discipline:

distance from the wall 1.5 metre, for a period of 5 minutes.

1995: The project of Palmball put on ice for the second

time.

2006: Design of few target-boards and attempt to get in touch with some electronic companies from the far east.

Exhibition of the game to students at Jijel University, Algeria.

2007: The real breakthrough happened with the design of a computer interface for Palmball. It does all the work of scoring, with visual and sound effects, just the target remains the same. The game of Palmball was officially launched in Algeria (Jijel university) on 21 May 2007. A small tournament was organized, for both men and women.

2011: Another key date in the development of Palmball.

A new computer interface was designed. Not a single electronic component is needed for the scoring system.

For the first time since 28 years, Palmball is ready for

commercial production and presentation on a large scale.

The third country to see Palmball after England and Algeria is Germany: A small demonstration of the game took place at Fraunhofer Institute IZFP Dresden on 14 July 2011.

2012: The last development is one of the most important

innovations since the invention of the game:The introduction of a new soft ball (about 6 cm in diameter) for playing palmball.

2013: Palmball Association is officially registered.

The main aim is to promote the game of palmball

nationally and internationally.

The first official tournament using the new balls was organized at Jijel University, 14-15 April 2013. The first world records were officially set for both men and women. Discipline: 02m, 01minute. The first friendly match was organized on 14 November 2013 between two teams: Jijel University team and Village Moussa team.The latter trio won 2-1.