Humans of Beach Handball: Anna Buter

A game as fast as beach handball requires a lot of forward thinking.

And forward thinking is certainly what Anna Buter did back in October 2012, when she introduced herself on social media website Prezi.

Just weeks after her 11th birthday, young Anna revealed her favourite food (pizza), her pet (rabbit Snuffie), her hobbies (walking the newspaper route twice a week), her weakest point (talking too much), her strongest asset (being very fanatic), and her vision for the future: “I would love to become a professional handball player one day.”

Confronted again with that posting more than 13 years later, Buter laughs: “Ha, that’s right, it was my dream as a girl.”

Now, at 24, Buter is a renowned player, both as a left wing with Dutch domestic champions JuRo Unirek VZV, who played in the EHF European League qualification this season, and as one of the pillars of the Netherlands national beach handball team.

Buter has been an instrumental part of the ‘Oranje’ squad that won bronze and silver at the EHF Beach Handball EURO in 2019 and 2023, respectively, as well as bronze medals at the last two IHF World Championships, in 2022 and 2024.

From a very young age

Predicting a successful future in handball for herself at age 11, Buter has been into the indoor game from a very young age.

Growing up in Tuitjenhorn, a rural village some 50 kilometres north of Amsterdam, her choice of sport was obvious. Her father, Peter, played football at the local club Hollandia T but her mother, Annaly, was into handball — like many relatives from her side of the family.

“My grandma played handball, my aunts, my mother, and my cousins. Meike started shortly after I did, as she is a bit younger,” says Buter, referring to her 22-year-old cousin Meike Kruijer, the beach handball MVP of the EHF Excellence Awards 2024.

Buter loved handball from the get-go and when she told her mother after a while that she wanted to train more, the two went on a search for a bigger club in the region. When VZV got word of the quest, they invited Anna for a test training.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Buter joined the club’s C youth in 2013 and worked her way up into the senior team within a few seasons. Initially a centre back, she moved to the line player position but ultimately landed on the left wing.

She made her European debut in the Challenge Cup 2019/20 and later scored 61 goals over three seasons in the EHF European Cup.

“None of us could do a spin shot back then”

From her early years at VZV, it had not been all about indoor handball, though.

Ard de Ruiter, coach of the C1 at that time, introduced beach handball at VZV after he had seen the game being played at a neighbouring club, HV Niedorp. He arranged a local farmer who dumped enough sand on a nearby field to create three beach handball courts.

“None of us could do a spin shot back then, but we all liked it so much because we were so fanatic,” Buter says.

De Ruiter soon prompted Buter and her teammates to register for the beach handball scouting days of the NHV, the Dutch handball federation.

Buter’s talent was apparent, but that didn’t mean it was all going straight up with her beach handball career from here. The first time she took part in the scouting days, she was invited to the next round but then was dropped from the national selection for a final tournament.

It only made her more determined.

“That was disappointing, of course, but because I liked the sport so much, I kept improving myself and the next time I made it,” Buter says. “If you like something and you work hard for it, it can always happen.”

“A relaxed feeling, just like being on the beach”

So, what is it about beach handball that has kept her hooked?

“The atmosphere and how players get along with each other, the fair play. It gives me a relaxed feeling, just like being on the beach for holidays.”

Also, the individual qualities that only combined make for a strong team.

“One is good in defence, the other in attack, everyone is just used for what they are good at,” Buter says. “In the VZV youth, we once had a player who wasn’t exactly the star of our team. But then it turned out that she was super good at defending in beach handball. That was so nice to see.”

From her years as a regular in the youth and junior national teams, the 2017 IHF Youth World Championship in Mauritius stands out for Buter. And not only for the exotic location of the event or because the Netherlands took silver after losing 2:1 to Hungary in the final.

“I won’t stay at home”

A few months earlier, Buter had fainted and fractured her skull. She suffered a concussion and doctors in the hospital told her right away to put the World Championship out of her head. She was going to need rest, a lot of rest.

“But I said to my mother: ‘Mom, I just go the World Championship, I won’t stay at home!’,” says Buter, adding she worked hard — in fact, took all the rest she could get — to become fit in time.

Shortly before the tournament, she passed a final test and was cleared to fly out to Mauritius.

“The World Championship there went so well, also for me personally, that I thought: OK, I have done it! If you really want something, it is possible. That was very special for me.”

Finishing runners-up meant the Netherlands qualified for the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympics, which Buter mentions as the second highlight of her youth career.

Her breakthrough at senior level wasn’t long in coming. Still only 17, Buter became the Dutch team’s top scorer, and the sixth best overall, at the EHF Beach Handball EURO 2019 in Stare Jablonki.

“I don’t look at my stats at all”

The Netherlands finished third in the Polish resort to win their first ever medal, and Buter led the team with 97 points — a fact she doesn’t remember seven years later.

“I don’t look at my stats at all. But I am very critical of my own game, I want to play well and reach my level. If I miss an important scoring chance, for instance, I keep thinking about that and don’t get it out my head easily for a while,” Buter says.

“But I don’t count my goals or check if I am the top scorer of the team. I play to win and whether I score 10 times or a teammate does, I am just as happy if we win.”

Since her debut in 2019, Buter has remained an important asset to the Dutch team’s attack in the following EURO events. She was their leading scorer again when they reached the quarter-finals in Varna 2021 and helped them win silver in Nazaré two years later.

Buter and Kruijer dominated the competition’s top scorers list in 2025 in Alanya, when her cousin finished on 148 points and she on 145, with the third-ranked player, Spanish star Asun Batista, following well behind on 120.

Also at World Championships, Buter has been the standout scorer for her team, finishing third on the competition’s top scorers list with 130 points in 2022, and second with 163 points in 2024.

“I’m still a person who prefers to stay in the background”

Still, Buter does not think her role within the Dutch team has changed a lot over the past seven years.

“I am a bit more myself and a bit louder now, but I am still a person who prefers to stay in the background and doesn’t always do most of the talking,” she says.

“In important moments, I am very good at being supportive and saying the right things. But I am way more focused on myself and on what I have to do, rather than looking at what others should do.”

Last year, the Dutch EURO squad included three more VZV players alongside Buter and Kruijer. Finally winning a gold medal with that close-knit team remains the biggest wish for Buter, who has celebrated successes at club level, too, most notably winning bronze with Black Lake Beach at the Champions Cup 2024 in Porto Santo.

Buter hopes to keep combining her indoor career with playing beach handball “for as long es it gives me pleasure and I’m motivated for it.”

Handball clinics at primary schools

For the foreseeable future, she prefers to stay in her familiar environment, where she plays handball, works, studies, and gives clinics at primary schools.

Participating in a project set up by the NHV, Buter twice a week visits schools in the region to introduce children to handball.

“We do games and exercises that are somehow related to handball. All children can take part,” Buter says. “In the end, they all get a certificate and can go to a local handball club and join three trainings for free.”

So, when in a decade’s time a new generation of Dutch beach handball stars shines on the courts across Europe, maybe some of them can say it was Anna Buter who first taught them how to throw a ball.

all images © kolektiff (main: Jozo Cabraja; in-text: Uros Hocevar & Jure Erzen)