VOLLEYBALL 

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The following Newsletter has been forwarded to you, from the Volleyball Newsletter  E-Mail list. The UK's leading on line Volleyball News service, providing up to date volleyball information, direct to newsletter members throughout the UK and Ireland. Articles are collected from a variety of sources and credited appropriately. The Volleyball Newsletter uses advertising sponsorship to support our free and non-profit making service to newsletter members. To advertise your volleyball events or products, direct to players, club and league secretaries throughout the UK & Ireland, then please see our web site for details or contact Dave at  Dave.Reece@volleyballnewsletter.com with the word "Volleyball" in your subject line.

Hi all - More Volleyball news from the web.

Cheers - Dave Reece Dave.Reece@volleyballnewsletter.com

Hi Dave, re the query in your newsletter just received and an interesting read as always, according to today's Times, the indoor volleyball will be held at Pickett's Lock in the Lea Valley if London gets the 2012 Games. No idea how correct they are; may be just a guess to make sure volleyball is mentioned; last week after government approval of the bid was announced, they omitted us from their list of sports altogether. I was one of several who wrote to complain. 
Best wishes

Douglas Barr-Hamilton Barrhamilton@btinternet.com

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/dorsetpictures/lst?.dir=/My+Photos/Hamworthy+Team+Volley+00&.src=ph&.order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/

Cheers Tim Edwards timegate@lineone.net

Does anyone know who is organising or running this years Gloucester tournament, I have received quite a few e-mails over the last few weeks from people who are desperately trying to find contact and entry details. 

Dave.Reece@volleyballnewsletter.com

Our Olympic hopefuls for Beach Volleyball Amanda "Mo" Glover and DeniseAustin take on the UK's Top Beach Volleyball Men at the opening UK beach volleyball event of the season. This Saturday, May 31st 2003, Boscombe, Dorset will see the first show down between the best of the men against our best 2 women beach volleyball players. As a build up to their Olympic bid, Mo and Denise decided to accept an invitation to play in the Boscombe Invitational Cup with a condition that they would play in the men's competition. The selection committee chose to accept their entry and they were subsequently selected to play as they believed they would be in the top 12 teams that registered. 

A member of that committee and "secretary" of the Bournemouth BeachVolleyball Club (event promoter), Richard Cannon said "They have been selected on merit, but they will be treated the same as the other entries. They will play over a 2.44m high net (15 cm higher than the women's height), they will be given tournament vests (all one size, XL) and they may have to face British Grand Prix Champion Tim Hollis standing at 2m tall". The men's beach volleyball game in the UK now sees most players over 1.90m tall, the smaller but quicker defender has been struggling ever since the court size was reduced from 9m x 18m to 8m x 16m. 

The Boscombe Invitation Cup, is run by the Bournemouth Beach Volleyball Club, with help and support from Bournemouth Council, Parasol Skin Care, Sportset, Mikasa and Pinnacle Events and Marketing Services. For further details see web site http://invitationcups.beachvolleyball.org.uk or email invitationcups@beachvolleyball.org.uk. 

Richard Cannon, Secretary BBVC, richard@rcannons.co.uk

Opening Beach Volleyball Event is a Scorcher

As far UK Beach Volleyball players are concerned this years summer officially started on Saturday, May 31st 2003, Boscombe, Dorset. With blue skies , temperatures in the mid twenties, a slight sea breeze, playing conditions were perfect to kick off this years start of the Beach Volleyball Calendar.

With most of the best players in the country competing at this first event, it should give an indication of form for the coming season. Number one seeds and favourites Tim Hollis and Mike Randall did not disappoint with a resounding 2-0 victory in the Mens final over the number 2 seeds Jody Gooding and Colin Paterson.

Jody back from a winter training spell in Australia with some of the world best players showed his class. However, little did he know the number ones seeds Tim and Mike and their training partners from Bournemouth and Southampton were taking regular trips to Heyford, Oxford to train at the only indoor beach venue in the country. The hard work paid off as Mike totally dominated at the net with immense blocking leaving Tim to do what he does best, picking up the scraps and powering the spikes and jump serves so hard that the ball was irretrievable.

Our Olympic hopefuls for Beach Volleyball Amanda "Mo" Glover and Denise Austin also competed in the men's competition. This was a first for Beach
Volleyball of this standard, and it will not be the last. Denise and Mo competed at the highest level, and not only made blocks against some of the biggest men, but at some spells during their games they totally dominated. The net was 15cm higher than they are used to, but they did not complain and were even happy to wear the Men's XL Competition vest.

In the womens competition Hedda Meijer and Debbie Spokes beat Paula Snow and Lisa Mullarkey 2-0.  Hedda and Debbie again the number one seeds powered their way to a resounding victory and now look to be the team to beat in the coming season, as Denise and Mo will be busy trying to qualify for the Athens 2004 Olympics playing the FIVB World Tour almost every week in the summer throughout Europe.

The event created a great atmosphere down at Boscombe with a high standard of Beach Volleyball played to great latin and reggae sounds on a beach that is fast becoming the best beach in Britain.

The Boscombe Invitation Cup, is run by the Bournemouth Beach Volleyball Club, with help and support from Bournemouth Council, Parasol Skin Care, Sportset, Mikasa and Pinnacle Events and Marketing Services.

For further details see web site http://invitationcups.beachvolleyball.org.uk or email invitationcups@beachvolleyball.org.uk

Richard Cannon, Secretary BBVC, richard@rcannons.co.uk

Exeter Heat Celebrate Double South West Wins

Exeter Heat Volleyball Club have double reason for celebration by winning the South West Volleyball Championships after their domination and top place in 
the South West Volleyball League. The team are only in their second year and have now gained entry to the English Volleyball Association National League. 

Even though several of their first six players were absent due to A Levels, Heat showed its strength in depth by beating teams such as Jersey, Whitfield(Bristol) and Gloucester who normally play at a higher level. In the final, the team played some of its best volleyball this season coming up against a strong Plymouth DML side. With set scores of 24:26. 25: 22, 19:17 the game was breathtaking in its tension holding the audience spell bound until the last point. The win was a fitting end to a successful season. 

The team is a youth side set up with the help of an Awards for All Grant it has the objective of raising the standard of youth volleyball in the Exeter Area. Strong contributors to its success are its youth policy and the dedication of its young coach and former England National Team Player, Nick Hendy-Hitt.

Ros Sutherland ROSSUTH@aol.com

Attack Distibution

The number of attacks per player per set varies widely according to different factors such as the initial line up , the function of the player and the distribution of the setter. Data taken from the world league competition after round 3 /4 show for instance following distribution. 

As player nr 1 is indicated the most active hitter and as no 5 the least active hitters. The wing hitters and the opposite are usually found under the first three categories and the two mid hitters can be found on order 4 and 5. Statistics will show lower order by player substitution with less than one attack per set. Those data will be ignored. The performance of the various ranked players are also different. Some average data are given in following table :

It is shown now that the mid attackers make both more aces and less errors than the wing hitters their overall efficiency hence will be higher. The task for the setter is to find a kind of optimum distribution , getting to action his most efficient hitters within the constraints of the game. For the mid hitters it is evident that a major constraint is the pass which will only in limited cases open all attack options of the rotation. The spread in the distribution data is indicated in following table.

There is hence little variation in the activity of the mid hitters with 1 to 3 attacks per set. The activity lowers rapidly with rank and shows a maximum spread for the lead hitter. The lead hitter for some teams appears to take a kind of " comfort place " , that is in case of problems the single solution is to direct the pass to this player ,often the opposite. Although the average efficiency of the lead hitter corresponds to that of the two wing hitters there is clear difference in that the performance of the wing hitters is to some extent independent of the load ; or in other words one my find no correlation between efficiency and attack per set, while this is not the case for the lead hitter. There are some teams where the lead hitter is heavily loaded around 8 to 9 hits per set but where the overall efficiency is clearly reduced. Portugal Cuba The Netherlands and Japan have all a to zero error corrected hitting percentage of around 25 to 30 as compared with values between 35-45% for Poland Spain Brazil Greece Yugoslavia and Bulgaria where the hitter is less loaded at around 6 hits per set. The distribution of the setter is therefore to be carefully observed as above situation will lead to non optimal efficiency. 

To see Leo's full report, plus tables etc, please see the Reports page on the web site.

leo van halleovh@wanadoo.fr

Dating a Volleyball Player

The 15th most popular phrase typed into the volleyball newsletter search engine last month, was "10 good reasons to date a volleyball player" and this was by 5 different people. So if anyone can name 10 good reasons or even just a couple, perhaps you could send them in and we will see if see if we can get a full list of ten together for the next issue. 

cheers Dave.Reece@volleyballnewsletter.com

As per the last newsletter, a couple more cartoon's from my hard drive, once again my apologies to the artist, as I have no idea where or who I got them from. If anyone knows, can you please let me know, more in the next issue.

Spot light on the North Norfolk Knights Volleyball Club 

The club was founded back in 1993 to provide local league volleyball for the North Norfolk area. In its first competitive season the club managed to win the old second division of the Norwich and District League and has subsequently gone on to win the first division on two occasions and the mixed league once.

At the start of the 2002/03 campaign the club merged its playing resources with Norwich Aviva to combat the loss of several players in recent seasons. During season 2002/03 the club, for the first time in its history, managed to win both the Norwich & District men's and mixed leagues. Members of the club played in the successful Aviva team which won the UK & Ireland Corporate Games title and were runners-up in the World Corporate games held in Seville in October 2002. A picture of team members at the opening ceremony is shown below.

Members of the club will be playing in a number of tournaments over the summer in locations as diverse as Poole, Lowestoft, Newcastle and Hamburg. It is planned that a number of the players in the local league side will form part of a team entering the Eastern Regional League in the 2003/04 season and training is underway to facilitate this.

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/antgrier/myhomepage/sport.html

The FIVB and Global Sports Alliance (GSA) have joined forces to help raise environment awareness through sport. The Ecoflag symbolizes the commitment to the environment of sports-lovers and everyone who knows the importance and irreplaceable nature of the water, air and greenery that surrounds us. The Ecoflag programme is linked to the United Nations environment programme (UNEP).

Japanese players lead way in Ecoflag project May 29, 2003 - Two Japanese Beach Volleyball players are leading the way in the Ecoflag programme, which is sweeping the world with it's message to "Keep the beach clean - think environment," with a "Garbage Busters" promotion throughout Japan.

Beach Volleyball World Tour event in Gstaad, Switzerland is setting the example by players using bicycles for local transport in the picturesque alpine town! For more information take a look at the global Sports Alliance website at www.gsa.or.jp

The One Billion Awareness project was developed in line with GSA's objectives of uniting a billion sports enthusiasts worldwide in the creation of a new kind of society that does not mass produce, mass consume and mass dispose of the earth's precious resources. 

www.fivb.ch

Spam Filter

Like many readers, I have seen a recent increase in junk mail, to fight back and to get some control over my e-mail in-box, I have set up several spam junk mail filters. I'm please to say that this works quite well (once you have collected the appropriate words for your: To, From, Subject line and Message filters), if you are in a similar situation and using Outlook express, Outlook or a similar e-mail program, I would recommend doing the same. For set up idea's and instruction on setting your filters etc, have a look at www.blackviper.com/Articles/OS/Email/filter1.htm and www.blackviper.com/Articles/OS/Email/filter2.htm 

With respect to the above, we have now set up a subject line and message filter on our account and hence I am filtering out all e-mails that do not have key volleyball words in them (like volleyball, tournament, coaching etc ) or similar phrases within the e-mail. This should not effect anyone but I am now asking people via the web site, to make sure that the word "volleyball" appears in their subject line or message.

Thank you Dave.Reece@volleyballnewsletter.com 

SPECIAL CASES

9.21 In the Youth World Championships for Women, Cuba was playing Slovakia. The Slovakian coach requested a time out. The second referee whistled for the time out. The first referee did not hear the second referee's whistle. Therefore, the first referee authorized the service by Cuba. The second referee whistled again to allow the Slovakian time out. Amid some confusion, the first referee awarded a delay warning against Slovakia.

Later in the same set, a Slovakian server was sanctioned for delaying the game. This second delay sanction by Slovakia in the same match created a delay penalty against Slovakia and gave Cuba a point. This point for Cuba was point 14 and took the Cubans to match point which they subsequently won.

The Slovakians vehemently protested about the delay sanctions. Were the Slovakians justified in their protest? 

The Slovakians had a good reason to protest. In instances in which the referees have had a genuine misunderstanding, the teams should not be penalized. Thus the first warning against the Slovakian Team was probably not justified.

Had this been the case, the second instance would have merited only a delay warning and the Slovakian protest would have never taken place. On the other hand, the Slovakians should have registered their right to file a protest at the time of the first delay sanction. Once they fail to do this, they give up the right to protest the decision by the first referee. Rule 5.1.2.1

More examples in the next issue....

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