A rematch between former VbDC coaches is shaping up for early in the new year in Belgium as Greenyard Maaseik Volleyball Club plays host to visitors PGE Projekt Warsaw in the CEV Champions League Mens Pool A. Massiek will be looking to over turn a 3-0 defeat in the reverse fixture.

Outsider hitter for Masseik is Cody Kessel, who has been an assistant coach at an Elite Camp, and the coach for Warsaw is Piotr Graben, who co-led an Elite Camp with Carol Gordon.

Incidentally another team in Pool A has a British connection with Joel Banks, former GB assistant coach now coaching Berlin Recycling also one of Cody’s former teams.

Tickets for the match on Wednesday 15th January can be ordered on the Maaseik website.

A recent tournament of Europe-located US Department of Defence high school teams held at RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk brought several VbDC camp alumni back to England. Coach Brian Swenty, who has led two summer camps, brought his girls varsity squad from the US Army base at Vilseck, in southern Germany.

Swenty’s team, listing several freshmen starters from a school of just over 400 students, held their own against schools more than twice that size, including a tight-scoring three-set loss to the tourney’s dominant team from Kaiserslautern Germany, which had two more VbDC camp veterans on its roster: Bella and Marlee are ow in their freshman year, the athletes – who have attended two summer camps each – are already sharing starting setter duties for their varsity team.

The K-Town–Vilseck game was described as Kaiserslautern’s toughest match of the two-day event. Swenty and other coaches expressed an interest in partnering with VbDC to form an all-star travel team for a summer youth tournament in Europe in 2025.

Volleyball is one of the fastest growing team sports in England, but there are few opportunities for athletes under the age of 12 to receive training from qualified coaches. Volleyball Development Camps aim to do something about it this autumn.

A new programme will address that gap in order to introduce youngsters to the game and prepare them for participation in new youth leagues being created across the country. Volleyball’s value as a high energy sport is just beginning to be appreciated in the UK for it’s demands on physical development in movement and coordination, and it’s requirement for teamwork and communication.

The programme consists of short periods of training in basic ball-handling skills, followed by structured small-sided games.  The days’ activities last one and half to two hours and will start in early November running through to December.