Indoor Women's Programme

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Programme History

2006 - After the announcement by UK Sport of funding for all Olympic sports in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics, the Great Britain Women’s programme was re-established in June, holding a series of training camps over the summer period to evaluate the potential. To assess progress the team played successfully against Scandinavian opposition.

2007 - In late April, the former Canadian, Swiss and Australian National Team Coach, Dr. Lorne Sawula, was appointed as the Head Coach.
After a series of camps in Sheffield, disrupted by the severe flooding, the team travelled to Switzerland for their first full Internationals. The main focus of the summer of 2007 was a visit to Russia and Kazakhstan, training at the Luch Sports Club in Moscow and finishing 3rd in the Kazakhstan President’s Cup.
In September the Women’s squad relocated to Sheffield to start a centre-based training programme. In an intensive winter training season the squad won the Novotel Cup in Luxembourg in January, defeating Denmark in the process.

2008 - The International season began with matches in the European Championship against Albania which resulted in victory at home, but a defeat away, thus being eliminated on sets difference. The programme continued with training and friendly matches at home and away, and a return to Russia and Kazakhstan.
In the Winter season 2008-09, the Women trained daily at their centre-base in Sheffield. November saw them travel to Japan, hosted by the Japanese National University team for a 2 week camp.

2009 - January saw Great Britain enter the World Championships for the first time. First up was Portugal, who took the match in the fifth set, but the Women scored Great Britain's first ever victory in the World Championships a day later with victory over Montenegro. In their final game they lost to Israel, who took the ticket to the second round.
After the resignation of Dr. Sawula in March, Audrey Cooper moved from the Assistant Coach position to Head Coach. The GB Women were part of the inaugral CEV Women's European League and played matches at home and away against Turkey, France and Romania. For most of the squad this was followed by the World University Games in Belgrade, where they faced both finalists (Serbia and Italy) as well as Brazil in their pool.
They visited Kazakhstan for the 3rd consecutive year to participate in the President's Cup and came away with the Bronze medal. To finish the summer they visited Japan on a 10-day tour playing matches against a number of Premier League teams.
The 2009-10 winter club season saw eight athletes based overseas, whilst the remainder of the athletes continued to train in the daily programme in Sheffield.

2010 - The International season started slowly for the GB women as a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland twice thwarted their attempts for warm-up matches before the start of the official competitions. The second qualification round of the 2011 European Championship saw them pitted against Ukraine, Slovakia, and Israel. In the European League they faced both finalists, Serbia and Bulgaria, as well as Romania.
With money becoming ever tighter, in fact in August the BVF Board took the decision to "unfund" the Women's programme in respect of monies received from UK Sport, they embarked on a fund-raising campaign 'Money 4 Matches' which was launched with a 310-mile bicycle ride from their Sheffield training base to the 2012 London Olympic Games venue at Earls Court.
The 2010-11 winter club season saw 16 athletes based overseas, and for the first time there was no UK centre-based training group.

2011 -