Club History

The club evolved through the introduction of Volleyball at Tendring High School in September 1991. Within a year the school had won its first competition, winning the U-12 JUVO league. The team consisted of several players’ two of whom; Alex Porter and Daniel Boddy would represent Tendring over a seven-year period.

After reaching the National Championship quarterfinals in 1994 the team was entered into the Essex Volleyball League (EVL) and subsequently won Division 3. With the standard of play steadily improving the team won the U-15 National Championships in 1995. In 1999 the team once again won the U-15 National Championships and the following year crowned themselves U-16 Champions with a new look team, featuring young stars of the future.

The appointment of teachers with a history of playing and coaching volleyball was a major development for the school and club. Darren Lewis, who had learnt the game through Coach Harris at Colbayns High school, was appointed as a teacher of PE and soon became involved with the newly set up National League team. The strength of the school set-up was demonstrated as Darren was mentored and developed his coaching skills for the future. Development of players, coaches and other volunteers within the game has been the model that Tendring has always followed.

A host of referees and coaches started their careers at Tendring and have gone on to have a real impact on the game of Volleyball in the United Kingdom. During the 1998-2007 period Tendring had no less than 7 teams in the local league and was the largest club in the county. The unique aspect of the club was that all teams were made up of juniors from U13 to U18. These juniors went on to represent the club in the National Volleyball League and at the regional level. The newly named school, Tendring Technology College, has now represented England in 5 World Championships (ISF), starting in 1998 in Greece. The college finished as high as 16th place defeating teams that were training full-time, in excess of 10 hours per week. Our greatest performance was in Cyprus in 2004 where the college narrowly missed out on a place in the top 10 of the world.

New teachers with volleyball experience began to arrive at the college. First to join, from Australia, was Liam Chinnery - one of the most enthusiastic volleyball coaches in the world. Liam was followed by Neil Masters and homegrown talent Emily Mansfield (who had previously attended the school as a student).

The college also benefited from a community coach since 2003, Seb Widlarz, Andre Kaprol and Alex Porter held this position for the club at different periods over a number of years. Kaprol started Tendring’s first Women's NVL team, Widlarz promoted the club around the district and Porter started an adult beginners session.

The club has morphed in a short space of time from a junior club with a few adults to an adult club with junior teams. Tendring has been involved in the coaching of over 12 primary schools, 8 secondary schools and is now forging extensive links with the University of Essex.

These links will pave the way for the further growth of the club, bringing in more players and coaching staff. Working with the Human Performance Unit based at the University will have a significant impact upon our performance of the future.

Since 2009 the National League teams have progressed with both teams getting promoted in 2009-10 from NVL Division 3 East to Division 2 South. The men earned promoted to Division 1 the season after. The Men’s Division 1 NVL team now boasts many former top division players, including Nick Davies and Alex Porter.

The Women’s NVL team have blown all the other competition out of the water in recent years. Since the appointment of Nick Davies as Head Coach the Tendring VC Women’s NVL team won the national shield and then achieved back to back promotion to the Super 8’s, the top division in the country. Tendring Women are the first team from Essex to compete in the highest NVL division in over 30 years.