Great Yarmouth VEBT 2012

First tournament of the year and we were travelling up to Great Yarmouth for the first Volleyball England Beach Tour event. We went into the tournament confident and was looking forward to our first tournament together.

After getting roped into reffing the first game we were to face the Turner twins. We had a very "rusty" start and this continued throughout most of the match, but we got the job done 21-18, 21-12. However we have to give credit to the Turners as they have improved there game alot throughout the off season showing very good ball control.

The second game saw us up against Martinez/Stroo to get into the quarterfinals. A good game on the outside court and we were starting to find our rhythm as a team. Both guys played some great points and we just overcame them by 21-18, 21-15.

The next game was the big one, the one we had been looking forward to since we found out the draw. We had Smith/Watson on centre court on the Saturday evening which felt like about 8 degrees at the time. Definitely took a while to warm up. Some of Great Yarmouth's finest came out to watch who had clearly sampled some of the local beverages (quickly being escorted out by security). We went in with a solid game plan and sure enough it worked, winning us the match 21-12, 21-16. Some huge blocks by Chris helping us on our way. This took us straight into the semi finals on Sunday, and as our coach always says "Sundays the funday".

In the semi-final we had the team from Poland of Wojtek and Irek (not even going to try spelling there surnames!!). Again with a solid game plan we dominated the match and came away with the win at      21-15, 21-15.

Next was the final and it was Smith/Watson again, our game plan was the same and after Perko created a great vibe on centre court we were thriving. The match went right down to the wire in the third set and after we lost 4 match points Phil and Russ took the match at 21-14, 13-21, 15-17. A gutting second place for me and Chris after we put ourselves in a great position to win being 14-11 up in the third. Oh well they say you learn more from your mistakes and we are now putting our weaknesses onto the training court.

A big thankyou to all the VEBT team for another great tournament and we will see you all in Weston-super-mare!