The Volleyball England Foundation and Aston Villa Foundation have partnered as part of a Commonwealth Games legacy project which will upskill coaches to teach the sport to children in the Birmingham.
A central point of the partnership will be the delivery of Volley2s, an adapted two versus two version of volleyball, designed for children aged seven to 11.
Earlier this month, volleyball coach Nick Shaffery delivered the first session to 15 of the Aston Villa Foundation's community coaches.
Since it was launched in 2021, a free guide to teaching and coaching Volley2s has been downloaded more than 700 times, predominantly by those teaching sport in schools.
"Thank you to everyone at Aston Villa for their support and for helping us to introduce volleyball to the young people of Birmingham," said Simone Turner, chair of the Volleyball England Foundation.
"We look forward to seeing the outcome of this project and seeing whether we can replicate this elsewhere."
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Volley2s aims to slowly develop volleyball fundamentals for new players by gradually introducing them to a full version of the game.
It is designed to provide versatility, accessibility, emphasis on fun, and low equipment and space requirements to make it a stepping stone for introducing youngsters to volleyball, but an ideal game for introducing children to sport.
"Congratulations to both charitable organisations for getting this project off the ground, and a huge thank you to Sport England for their support," said Clare Francis, vice-chair of Volleyball England.
"This project is a key component of our Birmingham 2022 legacy work.
"We look forward to seeing many new youngsters playing volleyball for the first time and, who knows, one day we may even see Aston Villa in our Super League!"
The initiative is mainly set to target schools and community groups in local areas of high social deprivation in Birmingham.
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For nearly 15 years now, insidethegames.biz has been at the forefront of reporting fearlessly on what happens in the Olympic Movement. As the first website not to be placed behind a paywall, we have made news about the International Olympic Committee, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Commonwealth Games and other major events more accessible than ever to everybody.
insidethegames.biz has established a global reputation for the excellence of its reporting and breadth of its coverage. For many of our readers from more than 200 countries and territories around the world the website is a vital part of their daily lives. The ping of our free daily email alert, sent every morning at 6.30am UK time 365 days a year, landing in their inbox, is as a familiar part of their day as their first cup of coffee.
Even during the worst times of the COVID-19 pandemic, insidethegames.biz maintained its high standard of reporting on all the news from around the globe on a daily basis. We were the first publication in the world to signal the threat that the Olympic Movement faced from the coronavirus and have provided unparalleled coverage of the pandemic since.
As the world begins to emerge from the COVID crisis, insidethegames.biz would like to invite you to help us on our journey by funding our independent journalism. Your vital support would mean we can continue to report so comprehensively on the Olympic Movement and the events that shape it. It would mean we can keep our website open for everyone. Last year, nearly 25 million people read insidethegames.biz, making us by far the biggest source of independent news on what is happening in world sport.
Every contribution, however big or small, will help maintain and improve our worldwide coverage in the year ahead. Our small and dedicated team were extremely busy last year covering the re-arranged Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo, an unprecedented logistical challenge that stretched our tight resources to the limit.
The remainder of 2022 is not going to be any less busy, or less challenging. We had the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing, where we sent a team of four reporters, and coming up are the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the Summer World University and Asian Games in China, the World Games in Alabama and multiple World Championships. Plus, of course, there is the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Unlike many others, insidethegames.biz is available for everyone to read, regardless of what they can afford to pay. We do this because we believe that sport belongs to everybody, and everybody should be able to read information regardless of their financial situation. While others try to benefit financially from information, we are committed to sharing it with as many people as possible. The greater the number of people that can keep up to date with global events, and understand their impact, the more sport will be forced to be transparent.
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