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Reviewing 2013
Reviewing 2013
It has been one long year and one without a break. From January to April, I was in season with Polonia IMKA London and Super 8s Statistics. I was there right to the end with the the Play-Off Finals. Immediately after (and I mean that Sunday evening we went to Liverpool airport to take an early morning flight), I was in Rhodes doing analysis. After that, I had to edit some videos for SideOut and tie up the loose ends for Polonia IMKA London and the Super 8s Statistics. Once the season was officially over for me, I spent the whole summer writing up my dissertation. Once I handed in my dissertation in September, I was already a month into the 2013/14 season and had to catch up on all the prep for Polonia IMKA London and Super 8s Statistics. It’s only now I can stop, catch my breathe and reflect on all the things I have done in the past year. So what are some of the cool things I have done in the past year? Read on…
Polonia IMKA London
My first season with Polonia IMKA London was great! We finished second in the Super 8s league and we reached the Play-off Finals. It was great being back at the National Volleyball Centre in Kettering for a second year running. We were up against Team Northumbria, a team that has not lost a set all season, let alone matches. We prepared as much was we could but unfortunately, we couldn’t pull off any miracles and we lost the two matches against them. That weekend was going to be the start of a very intense two weeks.
The 2013/14 season will be an interesting season. The danger teams around us have all got stronger but Team Northumbria have got weaker (in our first match against Team Northumbria, we took them to five sets when previously they had never lost a set. We won’t talk about how we won the first two sets though). We ended 2013 in second place so we are doing well.
Super 8s Statistics
The second consecutive season of the Super 8s Statistics went well. One way it has got better is we have received more match videos. In the first season, we got 26 match videos of out 60 (43%). In the second season, we got 51 match videos out of 64 (80%). I also settled on a workflow. To get the match videos, I would either film it if I was there, via wetransfer.com, by posting the SD card or meet the videographer in person. I would collect the statistics in the usual way. When I finished the match statistics, I would export the highlights. As that would run, I would produce the match statistics in Excel and then post it up. I would then post up the full match video. Finally, the match highlights would be exported by then so I would post up the match highlights. I would retweet those pages. After that, I would update the two teams’ pages. Then I would post up the links on the Super 8s Statistics Facebook fan page. That was it. Editing the Top 25 Plays and End of Season Highlights was cool too (see below).
The end of the season was awesome. Since I was there at the Play-Off Finals with Polonia IMKA London (women), I was able to film the men’s play-off matches and do some statting. It was London Polonia vs Team Northumbria. Team Northumbria remained unbeaten in the league with only 5 sets dropped. However, Team Northumbria just lost their first match against Wessex in the Cup Finals the week before so it casts doubt on their invincibility. Team Northumbria won the first match 3-1. London Polonia wins the second match 3-1 the next day. Then it all boils down to the Golden Set, first to 15, winner takes all. London Polonia wins it 15-13 to win it all! The celebration at the end was unforgettable!
I had some doubts whether to do a third season. I felt that amount of learning was minimal compared to the amount of time needed to run the Super 8s Statistics. Despite this, I decided to go for a third consecutive season mainly to boost my profile in volleyball and performance analysis and to network with coaches and players. I did change some things for the third season. I decided to post up screen shots of notable things as I was statting. I did this when re-statting the 2012/13 matches again for my dissertation. It got a lot of likes and comments so I decided to do it for the 2013/14 season. I also decided to post the match statistics, analysis and match video all on one post. It would lessen the page views but I felt it was easier to have it all on one post. I also started to post the picture of the stats directly to Facebook. Tagging players widened the total reach from 250 for a link of the statistics to about 1,500 with the match statistics plus tagged players. When it comes to a Top 10 List when I can tag players from all teams, then it can reach 4,000+. Another positive is Volleyball England is starting to take notice on Twitter and is retweeting my statistics. One thing that is missing is I don’t do match highlights. This is because the export function in StatEasy is now a paid function.
SideOut including Rhodes 2013
This is the only company that has paid me! It started with the SideOut Winter Series promotional video. Then it was the big one that was Rhodes 2013. It was an unforgettable experience but extremely intense. I worked too hard for my own good (most nights I slept after 2.30am and was up before 7.30am!) The thing killed me was editing the Rhodes 2013 video. When I did all the filming and video feedback sessions, I had a couple of days where I wasn’t really expected to do much, i.e. I could relax and enjoy the sun. I didn’t. I decided about two months prior that I was going to edit a video for the last night. It was a cool thing to do, the players and coaches enjoyed it but as I said already, it nearly killed me.
I also did a cool assignment with Sarah Shafiq. I was to analyse an individual player only. I would film one training session and perform a video feedback session before her next training session. One of the new things I tried out was do a screen recording during the video feedback session with her. This means it would give Sarah a permanent reminder of the coaching points that came out of the video feedback session.
The last thing was attending another Winter Series training session (again, I’m surprised I didn’t blog about it). This time was different to the first time where we would do the filming and video feedback session all in the same day. I would film the morning session, process and organise the video during lunch and then do the video feedback session in the afternoon.
Dissertation
After Rhodes 2013, I spent a long, hard summer writing up my dissertation. It was entitled: . Basically, I wanted to find out (“the identification”) which statistic (“performance indicator”) is the most important ones critical to success (“valid”) using data from the Super 8s (“in non-elite volleyball”). See link for a review. It was really interesting especially it was a question I really wanted answered and never before has the data set been in non-elite volleyball (usually it’s the Olympics or professional leagues). I handed it in September and I’m still waiting for the result. I’m told it is with the external examiners. As soon as I know the result, a blog post is on the way.
GB Sitting Volleyball
This was a cool to help out GB Sitting Volleyball Men’s team at the European Championships 2013 in Poland. It certainly reminded me of my time at the 2012 Paralympics. Unusually, I didn’t have to collect a full set of statistics. This was because the Head Coach had specific things he wanted to know, which wasn’t always the same for every match. This was cool because I didn’t have to waste my time collecting data that they coach wasn’t going to see and also, I spent much less time collecting data.
Looking for a Job
The thing the dissertation allowed me to job was dedicate one day to finding a performance analysis job. I did apply for many jobs and whilst I think nothing happen, I have to remember two things did happen. Firstly, I had my fourth performance analyst interview at Millfield School. It would have been an ideal position because I would have with many different sports at high level and it would have opened so many doors for me. But alas, I did not get it. Secondly, I did actually get a paid job as a volleyball coach. I coach City London University’s volleyball team.
Coaching Qualifications
To help my performance analysis career, I achieved some coaching badges. I did my football badge in February. This should help me a little in my quest for a football internship. I also procured my level two volleyball coaching qualification after having done my level one qualification 15 years ago. This will help me if there are any volleyball coaching jobs out there. It certainly helped me get the City London University coaching job.
Player Highlight Reels
I edited three player highlight reels this year. Each one taught me something. The first was the Seain Cook highlight reel (see link). This one was paid so that was good. One thing I liked about this one was I put in arrows that identified Seain. I watched other highlight reels and I never knew where the player was until it was too late. It was probably because the person doing the editing could identify the player immediately (as I can with Seain) but a potential new coach cannot.
The second one was for a former Polonia player Evdoxia Argyropoulou (see link). She was looking for a professional contract and she got one. I like to think my highlight reel did the new coach over the top. Anyway, one thing I liked about this one was the title page looked very nice and professional. It was by accident when I took screen shots of Evdoxia’s SideOut player profile and it looked alright.
The third was for a Polonia player called Grace Lazard. She is looking for a US college scholarship. When she posted it up on Facebook, one person commented about how this is not useful for recruiters because anybody can look good in a highlights reel. After I read this comment, I looked back about what I wrote about how to make a US college recruitment video and that person was absolutely right.
Total Stats
This is just a rough estimate of what I statted in the 2012/13 season. Super 8s Statistics: 39,564 (not including starting rotations, positions, shirt numbers, our/their serve) Polonia IMKA London: 19,811 (not including starting rotations, positions, shirt numbers, our/their serve) Dissertation: 42,520 (not including starting rotations, positions, shirt numbers, our/their serve)
Reflection
I look back and it was amazing what I’ve done, what I’ve learnt and what I can put on my CV. The highlight of year was probably the Play-Off Finals immediately followed by Rhodes 2013. Truely immense.
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