Premier League 4Sport volleyball success

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The Volleyball England National Premier League 4Sport tournament has proved a huge success.

The Midlands event, supported by The Albion Foundation and Sandwell Borough Council, has more than doubled in size since it last took place a year ago, with 65 teams and over 350 competitors taking part. The success of the
tournament serves to emphasise the amount of work that has been done to develop and implement volleyball in schools and community clubs through the Premier League 4Sport (PL4S) programme.

Young people, involved in the PL4S programme across the country, have been preparing and looking forward to the tournament after having the opportunity to compete in the regional PL4S tournaments - and it was time to showcase their skills and compete for the National PL4S Champions title.
The tournament was supported by 20 young leaders, who were instrumental in the event's smooth running, refereeing and managing the courts throughout the day. The tournament also saw the appearance of the "Volleyball Speed Gun" to measure the speed of competitors' serve - congratulations go to the fastest speeds coming from Stoke City for the girls and Blackburn Rovers for the boys. Speed Gun competitors were encouraged by the GB Women's Volleyball team who supported the event, with three members of the 2012 Olympic hopefuls squad coming down to get involved in the day. Grace Carter, Rachel Laybourne and Megan Viggars got involved in playing with some of the young competitors and giving them top tips and advice on their technique and skills.

The Deputy Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Consort were impressed by the size of the tournament and commented on how much fun the young people were having. The Deputy Lord Mayor also decided to join in on the fun and record her volleyball serve speed.

The tournament included an U14 & U16 age group for both boys and girls. There were some great matches and the standard of volleyball was very high, a marked improvement from the standard of last year's national tournament - it was clear to see how much the young people had learnt and improved in one year. It was a glorious day of sunshine and the morning consisted of pool matches followed by an afternoon playing for position.

All the finals consisted of some impressive volleyball skill and resulted in very exciting and close matches. The U16 Boys final was fuelled with determination and passion and was a memorable match to watch, the Tottenham Hotspur 1 boys just managed to hold their concentration for long enough to be crowned U16 National Champions. The U14 Girls final was equally as passionate, and a great result for Manchester City to have 2 teams in the final.

Medals were presented to the winners and runners up for both the boys and girls competitions by Siobhan Atkinson (Premier League Community Development Executive) and Andrew Liney (Sport England, Intervention Manager) and all the winners and runners up had their photos taken with the GB women, Grace Carter, Rachel Laybourne and Megan Viggars.

Reports from young people were that the event was highly enjoyable and the team manager from Wigan commented "all the young people are 'buzzing' after today, it was a great event and there are some young people who didn't play volleyball much and now want to join the club." The team manager from Fulham stated "it was a great day, all the young people are inspired."

Siobhan Atkinson asserted "The PL4S National Volleyball tournament was a great success. To see how the event has grown in 12 months both in terms of the numbers of teams entered and the standard of play was fantastic. It was a superb day out for all the young people, coaches and young officials.

"The chance to pull on the shirt of their respective Premier League club and compete against all the other teams will no doubt stay in their memory for a long time. Good to see the winners in each age group all coming from different clubs, I hope we can continue to build upon the success of the competition as we head into 2012 and continue to inspire young people about playing sport and the Olympics."

Stuart Johnson, Head of Development at Volleyball England stated, "This tournament was a great success and has hopefully inspired all the young people to continue playing volleyball and hopefully recruit more young people to the sport. With 2012 around the corner Volleyball is increasing in popularity; and we are looking to capitilise on the success of the PL4S project."

http://www.premierleague.com/page/Headlines/0,,12306~2386867,00.html
 
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