Grape's Brotherhood triumphant

by SM

Wed, 11 Apr 2007
In the last week before Easter, the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen sport club SPR has traditionally held a volleyball tournament. This year's tournament was the 42nd since the founding of the university's sport club and was organised by volunteers of the SPR's committee.

Whilst the 1st place cup was eventually won by a team called Freia (which no-one liked), the undoubted stars of the tournament were an international team called the Grape's Brotherhood, made up individuals from Colombia, Ecuador, Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, the Netherlands and England, and were managed by their talented Russian coach, Pavel. Indeed, the Rector Magnificus of the RUG, Prof. Frans Zwarts, appeared to be quite enamoured with the international team and spent some time meeting the team and posing for pictures.

The play-offs started on a Monday evening before Easter, although the Grape's Brotherhood were not scheduled to start playing until the following Tuesday evening. The team was placed in a pool of four teams, with the Brotherhood playing 2 sets against each of the other 3 teams. After an easy first match, the Brotherhood came across stiffer competition when playing the second team, subsequently winning and losing a set. This led to a tense final match, which the Brotherhood needed to win to stay in the tournament. Fortunately, fine teamwork and some careful player positioning by the Russian coach allowed the team to win both sets of the match, putting them through to the quarter-final play-offs on the Wednesday evening.

Wednesday evening saw some team changes, as Roberto and Daniele, two star Italian players, had to depart for an Easter trip home. Their loss was partially offset by the arrival of Primoz, a key Slovenian player, who stepped up and helped the team win their quarter final match. Unfortunately, the team suffered some uncertain moments when Federica and Simon had to leave the team for an hour for a journey to Dutch class, leading to the Brotherhood only wining one of the two semi-final matches. The team then lost on points difference and went on to win third place in the final play-offs.

View Flickr photos of award ceremony.