The daughter of a former Premier League footballer who once helped York City famously beat Everton is starring as a Team GB international in another sport.
York College student Freya Murty has just returned from helping her country win two games at the Under-17 European IHF Handball Trophy event in Kosovo.
Freya, 16, played at left back in the tournament that saw Team GB defeat both Albania and Azerbaijan.
The team narrowly missed out on qualification for the Inter-Continental phase of the competition following defeats to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Georgia.
Handball teams from this country are often at a disadvantage when competing on the international stage due to rival nations enjoying greater funding and participation levels.
Team GB, therefore, have only ever entered men’s and women’s handball teams in one Olympic Games – London 2012.
But standards are improving and Freya harbours dreams of competing at the world’s biggest sporting event of them all one day.
Family support
She is being helped in her quest to fulfil her sporting potential by her dad Graeme who, at the age of 21, scored as York knocked Merseyside giants Everton out of the EFL Cup in 1996. He went on to play for Premier League club Reading and was a Scottish international.
Freya has moved down from Scotland to study PE, Law, Biology and Chemistry at York College with Graeme now working as Sunderland’s head of professional development, having previously been manager of Scottish giants Rangers.
On the role her father plays in her own sporting life, Freya said. “Whenever I’m doing analysis and don’t understanding something, he is able to help me. Even though he’s not involved in handball, it all sort of crosses over with stuff he does in football.
“If I’ve not got training and want to do something, he’s there to help me or coach me, whether that’s with footwork or passing drills.
“My passing has also got a lot harder, because I throw it at him and he can take the catches and throw it a lot harder back at me than other people can.”
Handball is played by teams of seven, including six outfield players and a goalkeeper, on a 40m x 20m court.
Games consist of two 30-minute periods and players use their hands to pass the ball and score by throwing it into the opposition’s goal.
Freya, who has been playing the sport since the age of nine, also represents the Scotland national team and, at club level, plays for North East Manchester Hawks, who were national champions in 2022.
She has chosen her A Level options with a career in physiotherapy or sports law in mind but would also like to play handball overseas for a living and added: “I’ve been on trips to Sweden and their professional set-ups are so good.
“They have so many different leagues and the Champions League where they play against all the top teams in other countries.
“They also have specific handball stadiums whereas, in the UK, it’s very much a case of finding an available hall in a leisure centre and making sure it’s the right size and has the right markings.
“In countries like Norway, Denmark and France, too, all the main football clubs have a handball team, so they get the funding and younger people look at it knowing they can actually make a living out of a sport they want to play.
“In the UK, you might be able to play it at school but there’s nothing there in terms of making a career out of it.
“It’s very much only for fun, which makes it harder to make commitments to the sport.”