Tendring Volleyball ladies team had a tough first game in the top flight of the national volleyball league against last season’s reigning champions, Team Northumbria.
Over the summer Tendring’s local squad has been bolstered with scholarship athletes studying at the University of Essex, however with only one training session as a squad before the game, it was a big task to compete with the experienced champions.
Read more: NVL Tendring Ladies 1st V Team Northumbria 03/10/2015
The first game of the Essex league Division One season was contested by the Tendring Lions v Tendring Heatec. This was the first time these two teams have played against each other even though they play out of the same venue. The north east Essex derby was always going to be a great game to be involved in. Heatec had some new signings present, Neil Masters, Michael Welham, Simon Ibbotson and Chester Searle.
Read more: EVL Tendring Heatec vs EVL Tendring Lions 29/09/2015
With the first match of the fixture out of the way, the team had a good 30 minute break before the first serve against Harriers. We opted to continue with the same line-up as the first match only we flipped the starting positions for both James Chapman and Jack Nash.
The team lined up as follows:
Setter: Liam Chinnery (Captain/Coach)
Opposite: Chester Searle
Left Side: Craig Lawrie, Aaron Jones
Middle Blockers: James Chapman, Jack Nash
Read more: Tendring Mens 2nd vs St Albans Harriers 26/09/2015
Saturday 26th September saw the start of the M3SE season with Tendring taking on the Norwich Spikers at the St Albans School for Girls in St Albans. The squad met at the usual point with the coach anticipating seven players but finding himself with six.
After a necessary comfort and refuelling break the team found themselves on the way to the match.
We arrived at the standard M3SE time giving ourselves a good 10-11 minutes to warmup for the match.
On Monday 31st August Tendring VC held its Annual General Meeting at The Black Boy pub in Weeley. There were an excellent number of members that attended the meeting this year which led to a lot of topics of conversation. Alex Porter, chairman and coach of NVL Men's team, spoke about the injury hampered season for the men but also acknowledged the success of the Men's team, winning the National Shield. Nick Davies, former coach of the NVL Tendring Ladies, also spoke about the ladies promotion to the top league in the country, the Super 8s, and what an achievement this was. This led to conversation of the good mix of players that the ladies have and looking forward to the new players coming in from the University of Essex.