Today the Volleyball England Foundation caught up with Stefano Scrocco, Head Coach of Moss Side Volleyball Club (MSVC) in Greater Manchester.

1.      Tell us a little bit about your club

Moss Side Volleyball Club (MSVC) was founded in 2012, just after the Olympics games in London. Our idea was to get more people involved in volleyball in the Manchester area. We are an informal, not-for-profit social club, open to everybody regardless of their volleyball skills. We are friendly and we always encourage beginners and friends to join us. On social media we have over 500 members and our weekly open sessions are usually fully booked!

MSVC has its own Constitution since 2016 and we strive to be as organised as possible, to make sure everybody is having a great time! Everybody involved are volunteers, giving their time to the passion of volleyball. MSVC’s main pillar is the social volleyball mixed session on Saturdays, open to anybody willing to play volleyball, followed by a social activity like most of time: a brew together, a dinner out, cinema, a night out etc.

We have also 3 teams competing in the GMVL (Greater Manchester Volleyball League): Mixed/Women/Men. We won the Mixed division in 2017/18 and we won the Women’s division in 2018/19.  This 2019/20 season we have also entered for the first time the Men’s and Women’s teams in the Volleyball England National Cup. It was a great opportunity and experience for our Club to have more visibility in all the Country and for our players to face some of the best teams, like the Men’s team had the chance to play against Leeds RGA Volleyball Club recently promoted in the Super League for the approaching 2020/21 season!

2.       How has COVID 19 impacted your club?

Unfortunately, the GMVL has been suspended due to the Coronavirus Pandemic and all our players are missing volleyball! We stopped all our activities from the 16th of March 2020. Volleyball for some of our players is not just playing a sport, it is also a way to keep fit, have a weekly commitment, pushing themselves to improve their skills, meeting friends and making new ones. So, it has been a major impact more than just the fact we can’t play volleyball.

3.       How are you keeping in touch with your members / players?

For this reason MSVC have given members a chance to stay in touch, we have been doing weekly video calls to keep track of everyone during the lockdown, and also a weekly 30 minute workout we named “NO HIT? LET’S HIIT!” (HIIT: High Intensity Intervals Training). We have opened this HIIT workout to everyone to also gather more interest amongst volleyball players around Manchester, hopefully when the gyms re-open we can get newcomers to our Club and get ready for the next season! (So, if you are interested to join, get in touch!). 

The workout is planned and delivered by one of our assistant coaches: Aleksandra. She is doing a great job considering she couldn’t play this season due to an injury.  She is recovering and at the same time is making our players have a great sweaty time. She has also been involved in the MSVC for over 3 years and we are thankful for what she is doing now as a volunteer.

We also have other lockdown projects, which we are slowly developing: making a funny video together, have some STRAVA challenges for players, and so on, but all we miss is coming back to the court.

4.       What will things be like after lockdown?

I think it will be challenging to adapt ourselves to the new restrictions: I guess it won’t be easy to keep the distance during a game, or even at the bench, to disinfect all the equipment before and after the training, to limit spread of germs from coughs, sneeze, etc.

Hopefully we have all summer ahead and we can play volleyball outdoor, if the numbers of cases of COVID 19 go down. We will need to adapt and adjust, accordingly. As volleyball players we are used to doing that: adjust the hit when my setter is struggling, adjust my set when the reception is not great, adjust my reception when I have to defend a hard ball! The hard ball, at the moment, is called COVID 19 and we all need to do our part to adjust and defeat it together!

5.       How do you think the Foundation might be able to help you?

We are very pleased to have this opportunity to be interviewed with Volleyball England Foundation -  as a Club we rely on volunteers, we have to work hard every season to keep our members fee as low as possible, hiring courts is the most expensive thing we have to face. It would be great if we could apply for some funds to cover the court fees and therefore reduce players membership costs. We would also like to expand our Club and open it for juniors, but we don’t have enough volunteers/coaches and we would need a good marketing approach to spread the word within the community. We are also looking to have our own merchandise and personalised kits for members, but it is not always easy to find an acceptable deal with suppliers/sponsors.

Thank you Stefano Scrocco

Stay safe.