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Season Finale Weekend 2012 | Winning the Volleyball Shield Cup but Losing the Basketball Play-Off Finals
The past weekend marked the end of the sports season for me. Cardiff Celts (seelink) and the Super 8s Statistics* have finished already. On Saturday 28th April, Team South Wales played their final match.It was the Women’s Shield Cup Final at the National Volleyball Centre in Kettering. The match was against New Forest Ladies.With them being a mid-table NVL Division 3 South team and us being a newly promoted Division 1 team (seelink), the difference in skill level was evident and we won pretty easily. You can see their reactions at the end of the blog post. This was my third time taking live stats using StatEasy and by the nature of practice, I learnt and I got more efficient at it.
That day I got to meet both GB Volleyball Scouts. I met Craig Richardson, the GB Men’s Scout. It was probably the worst time to meet him because it was just after his team lost the Men’s Shield Cup Final and thus wasn’t the most talkative. Later on, I met Matt Bianco, the GB Women’s Scout. He caught me out of the crowd and said hello. We talked for a while and he’s a great guy. It was a shame I had to leave to attend my second meeting in Manchester…
*** Update 1 February 2021 | I actually managed to interview both Craig Richardson and Matt Bianco for this blog ***
On Sunday 29thApril, UWIC Archers played the Play-Off Finals against Sheffield Hatters at the Amaechi Basketball Centre in Manchester.UWIC Archers are EBL Division 1 Champions so we were playing for the Play-Off Championships.Sheffield Hatters were second in the league but they had a 3-1 winning record over us, including the National Cup Finals (see link).So what happened?Straight from tip-off, Sheffield Hatters raced to a 7-0 lead and they never looked back.By half-time, we were down by 8 points.Despite mini-comebacks, it wasn’t enough and we lost 72-93.
What I learned from this match was the nature of being “at work” and being “a spectator”. There is a vast difference in relation to detachment to the match. When filming the match (as I did in the first half), you get the sense of the occasion and how the team is playing but you are detached from it because you are focusing on filming. As a spectator (as I was in the second half), you start to get into the match. You start encouraging the team, you start shouting at the ref and you go through all the emotions a supporter would go through in a match.
I learned some things but in the end, it was one win and one loss for the weekend’s season finale. The season is officially over and my focus has now shifted to coursework**. I still have the Sainsbury’s School Games and the All Nations Volleyball Tournament (see link) but thankfully most of the preparatory work is done already. So yes, there is this thing called MSc Performance Analysis and I have to complete it. I have three essays and a dissertation proposal to do all before Monday 11th June. In the midst of all of that, I have my 30thbirthday to celebrate.
Although the sports season is over, I am still busy. It is a different kind of busy (academic rather than practical) but busy regardless. I have seven weeks to keep pushing before “my” season is finished in mid-June. The maxim is true and I intend to continue putting in as much as I can.
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