The sun always shines on volleyball
2nd July 2009
On Sunday 21st June over 200 volleyball players descended on Cleckheaton for the inaugural Hawks / Boathouse volleyball tournament. Although the tournament is well established as a Hawks event this was the first time the 2 clubs had pooled resources and the decision paid rich dividends.
With the weather forecast set fair a big turnout was hoped for but the actual numbers surprised the organisers to such an extent the start of the tournament had to be delayed slightly to allow the 34 adult and 16 junior teams to register and prepare to play.
Boathouse Chair Kevin O’Malley said “ We are both family oriented clubs, so to see so many youngsters playing alongside the adults is very heartening, both for us as clubs but also for the sport in general. Added to that the weather couldn’t have been better and a great day was had by all”.
Event organiser Laurent Zeiller stated “This was our first venture in the LPV (Let’s Play Volleyball) arena and it was a resounding success with over 80 kids taking part”. The LPV is a drive via Volleyball England to get more juniors involved in volleyball leading up to the 2012 Olympics and staff from the National Office was on hand to help with coaching and organising.
Colin Elsey chair of Hawks said “This event has been very successful for us as a club over the last 4 years, but we felt it was time to expand so joining forces with Boathouse made sense as we have close links via the sport already and now the tournament has become the biggest grass court event in Yorkshire.”
Event Coordinator Mo Bucksun was delighted with the outcome of the tournament “We had teams from all over Yorkshire including Hull and Worksop as well as 1 team from Middlesboro, and also some teams from the local Polish, Afghan and Asian communities making this a truly diverse event. I would like to thank our sponsors without whom we couldn’t have succeeded”.
The junior event was played under 4 categories U14 Boys and Girls, U16 Boys and Girls. The winning teams in the girl’s event both came from Nunthorpe School, while the boys U14 was won by Worksop and the U16 boys by a team from the Halifax Polish community.
In the adults competition the Women’s event was won by Leeds with the Men’s won by Boathouse.
Both clubs hope to expand on this success by making courts available to the local communities to encourage new players and also to bring the juniors from the area into the clubs and encourage them to play more and hopefully join teams or indeed set up their own team. Anyone wishing more information please contact us, any age or skill level is catered for, all are welcome.