Sun Turns Silver for Volleyball Travellers

The sun beat down all weekend on the white skins of the 12 Perth, Kinross and Fife volleyballers who had made the long journey to De Haan in Belgium for their 48^th annual tournament with temperatures of 35 degrees on both the Saturday and the Sunday. 

After the long Thursday road journey from Kinross to Hull, the overnigh t ferry crossing to Rotterdam was a welcome break before another 3 hour road journey from Rotterdam to De Haan where the group set up their tents on the Friday in preparation for games commencing on the Saturday morning. The Scots group were joined by four female members of Perth’s Motley Crew along with five Belgian males and three Belgian females forming teams called McDuvels and McDuvels Cocktails. A men’s team competed in the regional league competition with a mixed team competing in the Mixed Recreational League.

The men’s team started promisingly with two wins which was followed by a losing draw and a winning draw (the tournament rules state two sets only are to be played with set points separating the winning and losing teams). The mixed team suffered two losses as they took a little time to find their feet with the coming together of three different groups. They then recorded a draw followed by a victory and an unfortunate loss to finish Saturday’s play. Sunday’s games saw the men’s team continue their winning ways in a very close league of 8 teams. The mixed team lost their first Sunday match before drawing their second, winning their third, and drawing their final game to finish 8^th out of 14 teams. The men’s sectional games resulted in an extremely close finish with only three points separating second to fourth place reulting in the Belgian/Scots ‘ blend taking the silver trophy, their highest ever finish in international competition.

De Haan Men’s International Regional League

                                      Played       Points For      Points Against       Points Total

Housecheck                     7                349                     238                      13

McDuvels                         7                319                     269                      10

Maas-sjen                        7                318                     220                        9

Team Geschoren             7                260                     308                        7

Meer Charles                   7                260                     267                       5

Den Airco                         7                255                     292                       4

Stella Artois                     7                250                     308                       4

Denderhoutem                7                216                     324                       4

 

Article provided to Scottish Volleyball by Dave Munro