Comments on Devo’s blog appeared earlier this year suggesting we should split up the age group events at National Juniors and send them out to Country towns.
I wholeheartedly agree and it’s a brilliant idea. For starters, we’re not getting economies of scale anyway (it would appear that a bigger volleyball event doesn’t attract better sponsorship). Secondly, country tournaments are great. Great venues, more sponsors, more local support. Even in terms of developing the sport, country towns are an untapped resource.
I’ve enjoyed all the country tournaments I’ve been involved in as a player and coach. The Riverland Open was awesome back in the days that Janice Scott organized it. They’d put on a dinner and “show” one night and it was pretty friendly. The Mt Lofty tournaments have some of this flavour now that the Scotts have moved over. Theyw had Uni games in Geelong and Newcastle when I played which was great, Warrnambool’s always a highlight and Albury-Wodonga is always fun.
National Juniors has become so big that there aren’t a whole lot of options where we can host it. At least not as many options as if it was smaller. U15s has a lot of teams, but it can be hosted in Albury-Wodonga. A lot of towns could host U16s too. And when there’s choice, there’s the chance to get a better deal.
Anthropologically, smaller is a better number. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar suggested that the human brain only has the cognitive ability to manage about 150 social relationships. Communities and organizations of people work better on 150 or less. At that number order and civility can be maintained with personal relationships rather than formal rules and procedures.
If you look at an U16s tournament, there are 6 boys teams and 6 girls teams with about 10 players each. That’s 120 kids. About 24 coaches and their assistants, and some officials. That number looks pretty close to 150 and it’s by all accounts a consistently enjoyable experience.
Contrast that to National Juniors this year. Just read Devo’s post “AVJC – last look” on the tournament – ironically titled since there’s anything but a sense of finality in the discussion! We had a Victorian team turn up to a dead rubber 2.5hrs late. They said they were stuck in Brissy traffic. Some sources say they left their accommodation after the game started. The QLD team they were playing refused to play them. It was late and they had a gold medal game the next day. It went to the rule book (because when law and order can’t be maintained through personal relationships, that’s what people do), and the Vics were supposed to be booted out of the tournament, but they weren’t, and luckily we had the two best performing teams play against each other. There are other things people are debating about too. Coaches not turning up to all-star-7 committee meetings. Twice apparently. A team losing a set because the duty team scoring wrote the rotation of the wrong team down. All sorts of other stuff.
I’m not going to bother trying to work out who got it wrong. But I reckon that most of this stuff can be resolved easier, or avoided entirely when there are less people involved. Communication is a lot better to begin with. And when less people go, it can be more selective, which means taking less players that get into trouble, less coaches that get into trouble and less officials that get into trouble.
I like hearing nostalgic stories of what volleyball was like when it was smaller. AVSC used to be so small and niche that it was really only for the “junkies” – people who are even more addicted to the game than the “tragics”. It was held at the AIS in Canberra, where there are less courts but they’re better. Games would go on late into the arly hours of the morning and no-one complained. They don’t when it’s small, and the relationship between everyone is better.
What kind of pleasantries happen at smaller tournaments? At the Riverland Open, the Riverland Association put on a dinner and dance “show”. At Albury Wodonga, they put on a BBQ before the tech meeting. At the U16s last year, the hospitality students at Heathfield put on a meal at their new cafeteria facility. At SA Open this year, Mt Lofty took the Heidelberg guys out to dinner at a Pizza place owned by Heathfield’s deputy headmaster. And when people get together and do this kind of things, they end up being more pleasant to one another, and it’s only possible and practical to do when numbers are small. These pleasantries have a distinctly parochial feel about them, and that’s why they work.
You can do all this stuff out in the country. Serve dinner on some nights at the local football club, where everyone from all the teams can eat together (On other nights do the separate team thing). For the club it could be good fundraising and it’s usually better value than the stuff you get from the accommodation or takeaway joints. In the winter there are probably vacancies in some of these places and accommodation could be affordable. You don’t have to negotiate with city traffic to get somewhere on time. Some of these towns are a good compromise to travel too. Albury-Wodonga is kind of convenient for NSW, VIC, ACT and SA teams. Bit of a bugger for QLD and WA unfortunately.
There’s a chance to grow the sport too. Coaches and players (there are always AIS players and coaches who have to go to these tournaments) can come over early and run clinics.
And people are just nicer out in the country. It’s called country hospitality for a reason! Why not split these tournaments into smaller divisions and get bids from a lot of places to host them, and see what deals get put on the table. The different individuals, businesses and associations in a country town can mobilize pretty quickly and efficiently to put something on, and they often do a bang-up job of it.
Apparently they put the bid out for AVSC last year but it’s so big that it’s really hard to see any other city being able to compete with Melbourne. But if it was smaller, we would have been able open it up more and have more bargaining power. But that won’t happen. It’s the participation driven showpiece event. But the AJVC competitions could definitely be made smaller, better and more affordable. And to not look at country towns as options is underestimating what many of them have to offer.
