Volleyball Report - Barbados Challenge

The venue for the volleyball, along with some other sports, was the Sir Garfield Sobers Gymnasium and Aquatic Centre, a very grand and imposing building. Now, there was an issue with this - with Barbados being rather warm, the cost of hiring the venue rose exponentially if you included air conditioning so, guess what? We had all the doors open!

Forgive the mixed sporting metaphor but, the first curve-ball was thrown at us when the home side decided that they wanted to play "normal" indoor volleyball with 6 players on each side when the qualifier had been run for a team of 4! This wasn't actually too much of a problem as one of the domino players, who was quite an experienced volleyball player, and myself were able to help out, at least in making up the numbers.

I have to say, and I'm certain all the other players would agree, I've never played volleyball in a hotter, more humid environment. By half way through the first set, all of us had lost about half a stone and darkened the shade of our t-shirts considerably! As the Bajan team were used to playing together, and we were playing as a 6 for the first time ever, we didn't fare too well in the opening set and only just managed to reach double figures. Credit where credit's due, the home team did play very well but we didn't play too shabbily and showed signs that there was more to come. This was proved in the second set when we got into the mid-high teens before losing the set, in which the home team kept up their standard but we improved greatly. The match was best of 5 sets, so we really had to put everything into the third set if we wanted a fourth. We played exceptionally well in the third set with every one of us giving an outstanding individual performance, as well as combining to show great team work and spirit. Unfortunately, we lost the set 25-21 but were very pleased with ourselves.

We didn't discover until after the match just how pleased we should be. It's now time for the second curve-ball - 5 out of the 6 Bajans were international players!

That really did drive home just how well we'd performed, as a team, considering that we hadn't played together as a 6 before. It's really difficult to explain just how well everyone played but I really would like to say a very big WELL DONE to Mike, Sarah, Whips, Jenny, Barry and Chris. You did CSSC proud!

I would also like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation, along with all the players, to the CSSC team for their organisation and help, not only before we travelled but for whilst we were there too. They worked very hard and made sure everyone had a very enjoyable time.

Dale Walkden - Volleyball Organiser

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