M.H.V. 81 Women

The old sports hall in Mill no longer suited a group of local handball players, and when 'de Looierij' opened its doors, they used the moment to break from the region's existing clubs and build a home of their own. A preparatory meeting on 7 July 1981 set the plan in motion, and by September the name MHV '81 was official.

For years the men's side carried the club's ambitions. Promoted to the Hoofdklasse in 2005, they climbed into the Eerste Divisie the following year, only to finish bottom in 2011 and drop back down. A second run at that level, from 2013, ended in withdrawal in March 2015 when the squad could no longer be filled to a competitive standard. Danny Gommans coached and played through much of that stretch.

The women's team has since taken up where the men left off. In the 2023/2024 season they finished second in the Eerste Divisie, then closed it out with a 34-27 win away at Wijhe'92, the club they had been chasing promotion alongside all year. A quirk in the rules helped: the division's actual champions, VOC 2, could not move up because their first team already played in the Eredivisie, opening the door for MHV '81 instead. Lara Gommans, once a player at the club, coached the team up with her sister Kyra — continuing a family thread that runs back to their father's playing days.