This Is Guernsey

By Aaron Scoones

Capelles and St Sampson’s clash at Beau Sejour in the early 1980s. (0569787)

THE Guernsey Volleyball Association is celebrating its 30th birthday tonight with a lavish black-tie dinner at St Pierre Park, but the sport’s beginnings in the island were far more humble.

Volleyball in the Bailiwick has come a long way.

It presently has 400 registered players with 31 teams battling it out in seven leagues. Guernsey has also entered a volleyball team into every Island Games since the first one in the Isle of Man in 1985.

And every October, Beau Sejour is swamped with visiting players taking part in the Guernsey  Open.

But it all began around 1974, four years before the GVA was formed in 1978, in the little hall at the Les Capelles Methodist Youth Club.

Dave Falla MBE, who ran the  club, is credited as the man who introduced volleyball to these shores.

The GVA junior development officer Peter Walden was one of the first to try out the game as a 13-year-old boy.

The club used to play different sports every night and volleyball’s turn was on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

‘It was very basic equipment,’ said Walden.

‘We used to use poles held up by sand bags. There were no actual net posts and there used to be nails sticking out of the floor.

‘But that was all we had before Beau Sejour was built. People used to wear jeans and boots for the games.

‘No one wore shorts or proper kit until we got to Beau Sejour. But everyone was up for it.’

After the centre was completed in 1976, the sport took off.

Steve Le Poidevin, who was employed at the leisure centre along with Andy Castle, went about forming a men’s league which was up running the year later.

Walden along with fellow Capelles clubmate Tony Martel, who has also been heavily involved in the sport in Guernsey, formed the Youth Service team to take part in the new competition.

The other sides included the Airport Fire Service and the Electricity Board.

As the number of teams grew, the GVA was born, with Le Poidevin very much at the forefront of the administration.

The second year of the league saw the arrival of the St Sampson’s side that was formed by recent leavers of the secondary school.

Its new PE teacher Alan Scott, who had come over from Scotland, had introduced them to the sport and he also arranged a Channel Islands schools tournament.

The utfit contained the likes of Neil Elmy and his brother Rod, Gary Kimber, Gary de Jersey and Rob Alder.

All became top players and Neil Elmy who went onto become the island men’s and women’s coach and chairman of the GVA, paid credit to Scott.

‘He has been a major influence. I know a lot of players name Steve [Le Poidevin] and Bone [Tony Martel], but Alan changed the face of volleyball,’ he said.

‘Capelles used to play a high open game, but Scotty forced us to play three-touch volleyball, use the middle ball and combinations.’

In their debut season, St Sampson’s finished second in division two.

They won it the next year, gaining promotion to division one.

It would take them another season – as Capelles dominated the scene – before they claimed the top-flight crown.

Meanwhile the league structure grew with a mixed division added in 1980 and a women’s in 1981.

The men’s inter-insulars began in 1980.

Jersey won the first fixture but Guernsey took the honours the following season and held on to the trophy for 15 years.

‘We were just better,’ said Walden.

‘We were more organised in our set-up at that time. It’s only in the last five years that it’s got closer.’

When the Island Games came about in 1985, it provided a bigger challenge for the Sarnians with the Scandinavian islands always being very strong.

‘It’s helps us as it’s always been something to aim for,’ said Walden.

‘Saaremaa and Faroe Islands are on another level, but you’ve got to raise your game.’

And it is impossible to talk about local volleyball without mentioning the Open Tournament.

It started in 1983, with teams like the Royal Navy, Speedwell and Brookfield taking part.

It grew, but by the start of the 1990s the recession gripped the UK. Travel and accommodation costs proved to be too much for some teams and the number dwindled.

In the mid-1990s, it underwent a revamp with Neil Elmy and his wife Julie, along with Andi Pettitt, taking over the reins.

After striking a deal with St Pierre Park Hotel which hosts all the visiting players, the weekend usually sees 36 teams involved of which only six or seven sides are from the island.

The result is 200 to 230 visiting volleyballers take part, making it one of the largest events on the local sporting calendar.

‘It was dying a death,’ said Elmy.

With the open tournament as popular as it is, the leagues going from strength to strength and a junior coaching programme in place, the future for volleyball is looking rosy.

For Walden there is one aspect of the game that keeps it going.

‘It’s a social sport,’ he said.

‘The plus side is that it’s mixed and that’s what makes it sociable.’