Saint Petersburg HC

HC Zenit
HC Zenit
Founded	December 1964
Arena	Yubileyny Sports Palace
Capacity	7,700
Head coach	Dmitri Torgovanov
Club colours
Home	Away
	Website ; Official site

HC Zenit Saint Petersburg (Russian: Гандбольный клуб «Зенит» ; previously was known as HC Neva) is a Russian handball team located in Saint Petersburg. Their home matches are played at the Yubileyny Sports Palace.

They compete in the Russian Handball Super League and in the SEHA League. As the national medalist club competed in the EHF Champions League in 2010–2014.

In reaction to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the International Handball Federation banned Russian athletes, and the European Handball Federation suspended the Russian clubs from competing in European handball competitions.^[1]

History

Origins

In the 1950s, a handball team "Trud" was created at the Vulcan plant in Leningrad by the initiative of Nikolai Vishnyakov and Yuri Romanov. This team was the first in the history of Leningrad to receive the right to compete in the USSR championship, but it was not possible to achieve serious success, as the team was amateur and could not fight on an equal footing with the grandees of domestic handball.

Creation and First years

In 1964, a team of the same name was created at the Bolshevik plant. Viktor Dmitrievich Fomenko was instructed to train the team. The Bolshevik team could not achieve special success and after the division of the USSR championship into divisions, it was in the lowest third.

Neva

In 1973, the team was able to make it to the top division, but under a new name: HC Neva.

In 1979, on the basis of the academy named after P. F. Lesgaft a sports school was opened, from which many famous handball players came out, who later joined the senior team.

In 1993, Neva became the first Russian handball champion. The preliminary stage of Neva finished in the first place. In the superfinal, Neva met with the team from Chelyabinsk "Polyot", which took second place at the end of the preliminary stage. The final went up to two victories. Neva won away with a score of 29:26 and at home 29:27, becoming the first champion of Russia in history. However, then the club lost ground and next time became a prize-winner only more than 10 years later.

Since 2001, the team has been called "Stepan Razin - Neva" and under the leadership of Yuri Alexandrovich Babenko became the bronze medalist of the Russian Championship 2004/05. Soon the club lost its title sponsor, which led to financial problems, and the team was forced to refuse to participate in Super League matches. As a result, the club was supported by the university named after P. F. Lesgaft, and a year later the team called "University - Neva" returned to the Super League, and since the 2009/2010 season, the club has become the silver medalist of the Russian championship five times in a row under the leadership of Dmitry Torgovanov, second only to the permanent champion: Chekhov Bears.

Zenit

On October 2, 2022, the club has been renamed to Zenit, and became a section of FC Zenit, alongside BC Zenit, VC Zenit and WFC Zenit. All sponsored by the government-owned gaz corporation Gazprom. Their first match under the rebranding was against CSKA Moscow in SEHA-Gazprom League, which ended with a draw (29:29).