I came up with the idea of Smolball as a student of the University of Physical Education at a summer camp at the beginning of the seventies.

I went there with over 50 people fascinated with tennis. Unfortunately we had only two tennis courts at our disposal, which meant one had to wait very long for his/her turn. Thus, I suggested to take off the net, deploy small football goals and build teams which would play "tennis" to those goals. The idea seemed preposterous to everybody and I was ridiculed.

Later in Switzerland I introduced some elements of the game to the warm-up at my lessons. After one lesson already the students wanted the warm-up to last for the whole lesson. That is how I could try different rackets out. I also designed rackets made of densified wood which were produced for me in our school workshops. A similar situation happened with the ball. From the volleyball (made of sponge rubber) to the table tennis ball – all has been tried and tested before the game took the shape of today’s Smolball.

Some moments were painful to the participants of my lessons when rackets "glided" across the gymnasium, hitting someone's head, back or shinbone. However, the students did not want to give up the game.

That is how I came up with the idea to equip the rackets with a securing loop.

When the equipment was already refined and the game could be played without any hindrance, there came a time to work on improving the game rules. Thus, the originally quite chaotic game became an organized, very dynamic and incredibly intensive team sport. It is not without cause that SMOLBALL®, which in the past had the working title of "Tenniball", is now called the fastest team play in the world.