Page 9 - 張祝珊英文中學－ECHO V.13

Sports

“No Pain, No Gain” - The Birth of the Volleyball Team

4C Yeung Kit Yee Lilian
Though ‘no pain, no gain’ is a cliché, members
of the newly formed volleyball team always
remember this saying and stretch their potential in
the sport. Despite limited resources, the team has
turned from a group with little unity into a real ‘team’
in a matter of several months. The efforts that all
team players have put in are definitely praiseworthy.

The growth of the team is manifest. ‘Four
months ago, you could barely call us a team,’ one of
the volleyball team members, Maia Kennedy from
S1C noted. ‘We hardly knew each other and there
was no team spirit or encouragement from each
other. Now we are much more united.’ Mr. H Chan,
the coach of the volleyball team, also pointed out
that the team members have improved much in their
volleyball skills. ‘Most of our members have never
played volleyball before. At the beginning they
could not even handle the basic skills and they just
kept shanking the ball.’

However, when it comes to the challenges that
the volleyball team is facing, the lack of a proper
training space is perhaps the biggest one. ‘Our
school does not even have a proper volleyball court.
Such lack of resources makes the situation even
worse,’ Mr. H Chan explained. He also highlighted Our C grade girls
that in other schools, there were some senior players who could
share their experience with the junior ones and a strong team spirit
was already established. On the other hand, the volleyball team of
our school was newly formed with little support.

The volleyball team members, however, are determined to
overcome the adversities. ‘We usually practise on Monday. If it’s a
short day, we would go to the public volleyball court in Causeway
Bay or book the indoor volleyball court at Siu Sai Wan Sports
Centre. In order to improve our skills, we would train for at least
three hours on the Saturday before a game and none of us dared to
be absent. It was really tough,’ the captain of the boys’ volleyball
team, Jeremy Chak from S2C said.

After receiving training for merely three months, the volleyball
team members got to play their first ever inter-school volleyball
game. ‘We were extremely nervous in our very first match and we
had no team spirit at all. It came as no surprise that we lost, by a 10-
25 scoreline. But in the second match, we made some adjustment
and our captain Vanessa did a great job to cheer us up. We
supported each other and tried to do our best. Finally, we won the
next two matches! We could hardly believe it! Thanks to our great
captain and teacher, I truly feel we are a team!’ Maia recounted
Our C grade boys are going to start their training elatedly how she won the first volleyball match in her life.
While the girls have won their first match, the
boys are a bit unfortunate as they were drawn into a
group of death in the first round of the inter-school
volleyball competition. ‘We had to play against two
strong teams, St. Peter’s Secondary School and SKH
Tang Shiu Kin Secondary School. Although we
were defeated, we are hopeful about the future. We
have made great improvement under the leadership
of Mr. H Chan and we have built strong team spirit,
sportsmanship and team morale now! Even though
we do not attain satisfactory result this year, we aim
to do better and get into the second round next year,’
Jeremy said.

As the saying goes, coming together is a
beginning; keeping together is progress; working
together is success. With the strong never-say-die
spirit shown in the volleyball team members, we
sincerely hope that they can achieve a favorable
result next year. Along with C grade boys and girls,
there will be B grade volleyball teams next year.
If you are interested in joining the team next year,
don’t hesitate to get the application form from Mr. H
Chan now!

9