It’s great to hear from Nathan Roberts, one of our national indoor representatives playing professionally in Portugal for Castelo Da Maia. Nathan’s playing alongside fellow Aussies Panagopka and Aden Tutton, so his blog is definitely worth following.
It would seem that as a Brighton alumni, he has had his fair share of losing to Heathfield teams. I guess he was unlucky to be born roughly around the same time as Stuart Maycock, Sam Boehm, Marcus Jones, Phil Austin, Alex Fimeri etc. – when this rich vein of talent won Heathfield 4 Open Honours Boys titles in a row in retribution for losing to Brighton in 2001.
I first met Nathan in 2002 when we went away to AVJC. I was in my last year of U21s and Nathan had an awesome tournament playing U17s where he earned an all-star 6 selection and a silver medal. I remember there was a very dubious call in their gold medal match against the Vics. They lost the match point due to a rotation error! Fair enough, that’s not why they lost the game (the lost 3-1), but you just don’t call a team out of rotation on match point! It might be wrong, but I was taught in my level 1 refereeing course that on set point, the referee should “disappear” and let the players settle the game. In any case, I think it was within a year that he got an AIS scholarship.
We also shared a [cramped] room with Ian Scarborough, Craig Morrison, Matt Jones and Simon Horner (anyone else I missed out?) in 2004 when we both coached for Brighton at AVSC. I know the yr 9 team he coached got a lot out of having him as their assistant, since a couple of them played for my club and told me he gave them some great advice. Those kids led the recent Brighton Open Honours Boys team to finally win that gold medal that eluded Nathan.
So support our Aussies overseas and read his blog. Lets hope the boys make Beijing and Nathan gets picked, because that centre court in Brighton’s new gym isn’t going to name itself anytime soon! [N.B. The courts in Brighton's new gym are named after past students who have gone on to represent Australia in indoor volleyball at the Olympics. Tough criteria! So far they have the Bea Daly and Andy Earl courts].
It always suprised me the depth that the Heathfield School Teams had every year. Nearly every team plays as a ‘team’ whether or not they have a star studded lineup. I played 5 years for Brighton and lost 12 finals to Heathfield……and certainly not through lack of trying!! (5 state cups, 5 State Knockouts and 2 Open Honours GF’s) As much as I hate the fact I never won final for my school I always admired the depth and talent from the school and it’s a credit to the coaching and the setup they have implemented there.
