Juniors key as fears grow for the future of volleyball in Yorkshire

Volleyball is played throughout the county, with clubs based in Hull, Barton, York, Harrogate, Barnsley, Doncaster, Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield and Holderness, as well as at the region’s universities.

Yorkshire is also an important centre for beach volleyball, featuring on the UK tour, but competition in both forms of the sport has effectively been shut down since last March.

The virus struck at a time when volleyball, both indoors and on the beach, was growing in the county, but Tim Godson, chairman of the Yorkshire Volleyball Association, fears players and teams will be lost when it eventually resumes.

“I thought we were making good strides, a lot of clubs were developing juniors,” said Godson, who is a member of the York club, of the situation before last March.

“We have had a steady stream of people arriving from Europe to play for our clubs and I think that is going to finish so we have got to start developing juniors and bringing people into the game, but some of them have hardly played in a year now.”

Like other indoor sports, six-a-side volleyball was permitted between national lockdowns, but the problem then was finding somewhere to play.

Godson explained: “A lot of the clubs have had very little access to their usual venues.

“A lot of clubs use schools and the way things were, the lowest priority they had was allowing external people into their venues.

“Certainly in Yorkshire, nobody owns a venue. York has managed to hire venues, but they have been more expensive and only available for a few weeks.

“We were successful running outdoors, but all the big tournaments were cancelled. I just wonder, with it having been so long, if we will lose people from the sport when it all starts up again.

“We had a few weeks when we could run adults (training sessions), but we couldn’t find venues that wanted us in there.”

Before the pandemic, Yorkshire had six men’s and seven women’s teams playing in the National Volleyball League, plus 15 men’s and 12 women’s sides at regional level. In addition, Hull and East Yorkshire had eight teams in their one mixed competition.

York, aided by players from Hull, reached the quarter-finals of the Under-18s national knockout tournament for the first time just weeks before the sport was suspended and both York and Leeds Ruth Gorse Academy had youngsters selected for the England talent pathway.

“We have already lost a few players who have moved away,” said Godson.

“At York, we were successful recruiting juniors last summer, on the grass, but we could not provide them with any competition and now it has all closed down again.

“I know it has affected other indoor sports, like basketball and a lot depends on how quickly it can all reopen.”

This year’s National Volleyball League season has been scrapped and though Yorkshire hope to resume for a shortened campaign at some stage this summer, uncertainty over future restrictions makes planning difficult, if not impossible.

Volleyball in this country is strictly amateur and not funded; players selected for national squads, for instance, have to buy their own kit and pay for accommodation at monthly camps hosted by the sport’s national base in Kettering.

Those camps have continued when the country has been out of lockdown, but overseas competitions, giving English youngsters the opportunity to play against stronger nations, are on hold.

“It is no different to a lot of activities, but indoor competitive sports of this nature seem to have particularly struggled,” continued Godson.

“There was an allowance for Under-18s to continue before the latest lockdown and then there was an allowance for elite sport, but volleyball does not count as an elite sport.

“We are down the pecking order and we’ve had to stop when some other sports have been able to carry on.

“I just hope things go back to normal and some of the players we’ve been attracting will continue.

“I think it is a sport where a lot of juniors give it a go if they get disaffected because if you aren’t really good you don’t get in the football team or the netball team.

“They come down with their mates and enjoy it.”

Additionally, Godson said: “The York club grew during that period when we had a lot of East Europeans, Spanish, Italians coming into the country.

“We have lost some of those people because they have moved back home again and I don’t think we will be seeing the stream of people coming through the door that we did at one stage.

“We have got to put the effort into growing the sport through juniors and adults who want to play.

“We have started doing that, but (the pandemic) has exacerbated the problem this year.

“Everything might bounce back, but it is difficult to know at this stage.”

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