Sélestat Alsace Handball

The handball section of the Sport Club de Sélestat was created in 1967 by Germain Spatz^[2] and was enthusiastically received by young people in Sélestat. Subsequently, this enthusiasm allowed Selestadian handball players to climb all the levels to reach the top of departmental and regional competitions and finally reach in 1972 in the French National Championship 3 (4th national level at that time). The team remained at this level for 12 seasons, winning the title of champion of France of Nationale 3 in 1979. A season after the accession in 1984 in Nationale 2, the club went up in Nationale 1B in 1985. Finally, at the end of an exceptional 1989–1990 season, the club realized its dream by reaching division 1 and managing to stay there. The club entered the French 1st division championship during the 1990–1991 season.

In 1995, the club reached the final of the Coupe de France but was defeated by OM Vitrolles, which was his best professional result to date. However, the club has won the Coupe d'Alsace six times. One of the smallest budgets in the LNH, the Sélestat Alsace Handball is nevertheless renowned as having an excellent training center.^{[according to whom?]} It is here that Thierry Omeyer, Mickaël Robin, Rock Feliho and Seufyann Sayad were trained. Often used as a springboard for a future career, the Sélestat Alsace Handball has also enabled many players, today of international class, to make themselves known to the general public or to relaunch their professional careers such as the German Volker Michel, Argentinian Eric Gull as well as Tunisians Heykel Megannem and Issam Tej, elected in the purple jersey respectively best center-half in 2005 and best pivot of the French championship in 2005 and 2006.^{[citation needed]}

In 2008, the club took its independence by leaving the Sport Club de Sélestat to become the Sélestat Alsace Handball (SAHB). Then a major development for the club took place on June 6, 2011, with the creation of SASP Alsace Promo Handball,^[3] one of the shareholders and member of the supervisory board of which is Thierry Omeyer, in order to manage the professional sector of the club. Structured in this way, the SAHB aspires to offer Alsace, the East of France and all of its partners a media scene with a European dimension. Relegated to the division at the end of the 2008–2009 season, the club returned to the elite two years later. The club then evolves in the "soft underbelly" of the championship, far from both relegation and European places. The club thus finished 7th in 2012 and 8th in 2013, the third and fourth best results for the club in the league. The 2014 off season marked major changes in the club's sports management since, in contrast to the club's usual stability, eight starts and seven arrivals reshaped the club's workforce. Penultimate at the time of the international break, Jean-Luc Le Gall, club coach since 2008 and whose contract had been extended in the summer of 2014 until June 2016, was dimissed on February 2, 2015^[4] and was replaced three days later by Christian Gaudin.^[5]