On the weekend of 7th-9th June the inaugural Edinburgh 7s festival took place at Meggetland Sports complex. What a weekend it was, we had sun, sand, music, Olympians and most importantly lots and lots of volleyball.
Volley-All
The Friday morning saw the arrival of boys and girls from schools from James Gillespie’s HS to Ballachulish primary school in Argyll and Bute for the Volley-All festival! The kids, from P5 – S3 were all involved in participation level games in the morning with some coaching assistance from our MACvolunteers. In the afternoon all the teams played competitively against each other and there was great improvement from the morning with all the kids performing with great enthusiasm.
We had awards for individuals and teams with the following winners;
3 touch volleyball award: James Gillespie’s HS – S1-S3 Boys
Most Improved Team: Craigroyston HS – S1-S3 Girls
Spirit of the Day: Ben Dunlop – Queensferry
Official of the Day: Josh – Ballachulish
The volley-all was a success for those involved and we hope to build the event into an annual national outdoor schools festival.
The Scottish Volleyball association even got in the spirit of the entire weekend as they entered a team lead by SVA president Mel Coutts into corporate dodge ball event on the Friday evening.
Park Volleyball
There were three divisions competing in the park volleyball competition, which featured representatives from all local teams as well as Marden Volleyball, who travelled up from Northumbria for the event, it was great to have them take part.
The standout team were, however, the Telford Leg Ends. The team was a reunion of the Telford team who won the Scottish Cup in 1985 and comprised the likes of Ronny Hamilton, Kenny Barton, John Gaughan, Tam Kane and Stephen Harrison. Let’s hope this becomes an annual tradition.
All teams competed well and had lots of fun, making most of the great weather with most teams playing 8 games over the weekend. The winners of the Park Volleyball competition however, were;
Men’s Park Volleyball Champions – City of Edinburgh – Sausage Fingers
Women’s Park Volleyball Champions – Linlithgow/Jets – All Mixed Up
Mixed Park Volleyball Champions – NUVOC
Beach Volleyball – British Invitational Masters
The main event of the weekend was a two day elite beach volleyball competition comprising of 4 of the top beach volleyball pairings in Britain, both male and female.
The court looked magnificent and it was a great setting for the competition as the sounds from the music tent helped build a party atmosphere around the beach volleyball show court.
Saturday’s schedule was packed with all teams to play each other, some great competition and just as the sun was setting after shining bright all day Coutts/Brown served up a cracking match against Olympian Mullin and her partner Hastings. It was Coutts/Brown who gained the psychological advantage over the home pairing and it was a great sceptical to finish the day.
In between some games there was an opportunity for the public to give beach volleyball a shot. Encouraged on by Beach volleyball announcer Kenny Barton everyone present showed a great appetite to get involved with beach volleyball.
The sun’s rays glistened of the sand on Sunday morning as Mullin/Hastings looked to put their loss behind them and book a place in the final. They were made to work for their points, however, ran out comfortable winners against Emmy/Courtney 21-17, 21-16.
The second women’s semi-final saw Coutts/Brown take on Vanessa/Kaigana and the top seeds showed no sign of tiredness from the late match the previous evening disposing of their opponents 21-15, 21-12 in just 37 minutes.
A crowd was gathering in the stand and around the court as the undefeated Gregory/Sheaf dismantled the challenge of Tomek/Krakowski in straight sets, 21-17, 21-14.
It was then up to home team Riddle/Tully both of whom play indoors in the Scottish National League together with City of Edinburgh, to try and find a way past the impressive tacticians of Flay/Rich. The visitors from England, however, proved too strong and took the match 21-17, 21-12 to book their place in the final.
The arena packed full as people from the other 6 sports came to view the final. It was great to see three current or former City of Edinburgh players competing the final, however, it was current player Mel Coutts and her partner Helen Brown who came out victorious in a thrilling final 2-0.
The men’s final proved to beach an outstanding display of power, agility, tactics and team-work as Gregory/Sheaf took the match 2-0 against Flay/Rich.
You can view Gregory/Sheaf’s video blog of the event here
You can view pictures from Volleyballphotos.com here
| Results | Men’s Competition | Women’s Competition | |
| Winners | Sheaf/Gregory | Coutts/Brown | |
| Runners-Up | Flay/Rich | Mullin/Hastings | |
| 3rd Place | Tully/Riddle | Vanessa/Kaigana | |
| 3rd Place | Tomek/Krakowski | Emmy/Courtney |
The best part of the weekend, however, was the volunteers with over 18 individuals spread over the weekend helping out with the volley-all, park volleyball and beach volleyball events. The event would not have been possible without these individuals and their work over the weekend was outstanding. One special mention to volunteer Freddie Fairbairn who was there from Thursday’s set-up till Monday night’s de-rig and epitomised the very essence of what makes the Scottish volleyball community so special.
Many thanks to Gordon Hood and all involved with the Edinburgh 7s festival, it was great to be part of such an event and we are looking forward to next year already.
Graeme Spowart
