The British Volleyball Federation (BVF) is the national sports governing for volleyball participation in the UK. It is a

Home Nations Home Nations is a collective term with one of two meanings depending on context. Politically it means the nations of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In sport, if a sport is g ...

federation of

Volleyball England Volleyball England is the national governing body for indoor volleyball, sitting volleyball and beach volleyball in England. It selects the national teams and coordinates several national competitions, including the National Volleyball League, N ...

, Volleyball Wales, Scottish Volleyball and Northern Ireland Volleyball. It lobbies the UK government for funding to help elite volleyball athletes compete internationally.

History

Formation

The BVF was formed as the Amateur Volleyball Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1955. It was revived in 1980 as the British Volleyball Federation, and registered as a company on 21 July 2008. It ran annual competitions between teams from the Home Nations from 1985-1991. In 1990 it appointed a full-time coach. In late 1992, it developed the idea of opening a national training centre for team volleyball at Sheffield. It would be the first team sport in Britain to have such a centre.

Olympic Representation

The BVF planned for Britain to send a Great Britain volleyball team to the Olympics in 1992, but this never occurred. Home Nations teams continued to represent Britain in other international competitions. British volleyball was not funded well in the 1990s. For the 1996 Olympics, beach volleyball pair Audrey Cooper (aged 31) and Amanda Glover (aged 25) qualified after practising on Bournemouth beach, and this was the first time that Britain had ever qualified for any volleyball discipline in the Olympics. After qualifying, in March 1996, they trained in Amsterdam because Britain had no permanent beach volleyball courts. The London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympics set goals for GBR representation in Indoor Volleyball, Beach Volleyball and Sitting Volleyball. An intense programme of 5 years with UK Sport funding brought GBR teams to the point of qualification as hosts. UKSport reduced funding to BVF and de-funded the Women's Indoor and Men's Beach programmes. Notwithstanding this, all 6 disciplines played on and met the credibility threshold set by the British Olympic Association (NOC). They took the courts in August 2012 at Earls Court, Horseguards Parade and the ExCel Centre. The British Volleyball Federation continues to lead and focus on elite representation for the UK in all six volleyball team disciplines in the Olympic and Paralympic movement. In common with many other GBR Olympic sports the funding from the current government sports agency ukSport has been minimal for preparations to achieve qualification for the Rio Games of 2016. Notwithstanding this, BVF continues to press forward with the support of the World and European authorities ( FIVB and CEV).

Beach Volleyball Olympic Legacy

Prior to the London 2012 Olympics, funding for beach courts in Britain was difficult because the BVF was funded by the

Sports Council Sport England is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its role is to build the foundations of a community sport system by working with national governing bodies of sport, and other funded par ...

, and could not therefore apply for National Lottery grants. Since that time, the number of Beach Volleyball Clubs and Courts has greatly increased, and competitions such as the UK Beach Tour help to develop UK athletes. Beach Volleyball made its Youth Commonwealth Games debut in the Bahamas in 2017, followed by the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast in 2018, with representation from Home Nations teams, It will also be part of the official programme for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Headquarters

The BVF was headquartered at the

English Institute of Sport – Sheffield The English Institute of Sport is a multi-sport facility in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The facility designed by FaulknerBrowns Architects was opened in December 2003 at a cost of £24 million. Its main feature is a 200m indoor track, ...

in the runup to the 2012 London Games and was sponsored by

Vertex Vertex, vertices or vertexes may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics and computer science *Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines, or edges meet *Vertex (computer graphics), a data structure that describes the position ...

. Training for both men's and women's teams took place at Sheffield and Beach Pairs abroad. Since the 2012 Games, BVF has downsized and its administration is supported at Loughborough by the Volleyball England staff.

Function

The BVF disciplines include: *

Indoor volleyball Indoor(s) may refer to: *the interior of a building *Indoor environment, in building science, traditionally includes the study of indoor thermal environment, indoor acoustic environment, indoor light environment, and indoor air quality *Built envi ...

Beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the ...

Sitting volleyball Sitting volleyball is a form of volleyball for athletes with a disability. As opposed to standing volleyball, sitting volleyball players must have at least one buttock in contact with the floor during the game. History Sitting volleyball was inve ...

(Paralympics) *

Snow Volleyball Snow volleyball is a winter team sport played by two teams of three players on a snow court divided by a net. The objective of each team is to score points by sending a ball over the net so as to ground it on the opponent's court, and to prevent ...

References

External links

British Volleyball

Volleyball England

Scottish Volleyball

Volleyball Wales

Northern Ireland Volleyball

UK Beach Tour

Video clips

Richard Callicott explains how British Volleyball formed

Preparation for beach volleyball
{{GBR sport federations Volleyball in the United Kingdom Organisations based in Sheffield Sport in Sheffield Volleyball organizations 1955 establishments in the United Kingdom Sports organizations established in 1955

Volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...