Well, there was no volleyball to speak of... at all!. There were a couple of Polish sports and social centres dotted around the place who knew the game but there was no association, no leagues, registered teams, tournaments - nothing. Try and imagine what this was like for me. Previously, I was used to playing at national and international level and to come to........ just nothing. It was very demoralising for me.

Well, I was slowly going round the bend out of frustration. I guess I’d been in GB for about a year or so now. I’d been placed in Falkirk originally, via the refugee camps in Austria. I was taught English and given the opportunity to work as a miner but I instead moved to the Midlands and then finally settling in Gants Hill, Essex in September 1957. Some relatives and myself set up a ‘household’ that would become my platform to build upon and I started looking for sports and social clubs. By fluke I discovered ‘London Academicals’ run by a guy called Henry Kreicoch. A Polish club, again another faction from the refugee camps, and it was there that I met Tom Egri - another Hungarian that I had played against back home. Together, we would play all the other Polish clubs scattered throughout the country; there was an Estonian club and a Latvian Basketball club too. Sometimes we had to travel two, maybe three hundred miles just to get a game!! There was one team in Leicester I remember, another in Slough and Derby and that was it!. There really was no British interest at this stage at all.

I was trying to get into Loughborough University in May of all times. Still naive to the fact that I should’ve applied six months earlier! They gave me an interview but couldn’t offer me a placement til next year. Well, that was no good to me so I ended up in Avery Hill, Eltham largely thanks to a guy called Don Anthony

Don was a great guy - an ex olympian in the Hammer Throw and was very keen to promote volleyball in England. He’d been introduced to the sport sometime before and was taken in by it completely. He’d always had this plan that he was going to do something great here in the UK and really wanted to leave his mark, so when I came along and he saw my CV, I was given a placement.

Volleyball in Europe is a huge sport - enormous, and I’d played at international U20’s for Hungary, played 1st Div National U20’s at 17. I was training five times a week, four hours a day since I was 14 years old. That was more experience than he could ever hope to find!

I was given a place to finish off my studies (PE and Maths) with the agreement that I was also to recruit and coach the other PE students towards volleyball as part of their syllabus. Now, this was met with fair degree of scepticism. Most of them were keener to play basketball but if I made it as much fun as possible then I could slowly win them round

Sure. I mean, these guys are here to play and learn sport so they had the right mindset once their doubts about the game had disappeared. It’s not like trying to teach people who don’t want to play - it was in their own interests to do well because it was part of the course. Within a year I’d say, we were giving the Poles a run for their money.

We needed regular match practice to keep this thing going. The Soviet Embassy was very good opposition. One of the bodyguards, Alex, was an ex olympian and held the acclaimed ‘Master of Sports’ award which was the highest contribution to sporting excellence that the Soviets had to offer. They were eventually flying in players (some ex internationals) to compete against Avery Hill as we improved, just to ensure that they won!. The USAF bases here also provided us with good opposition, but were too dumb - hit too hard.

The Amateur Volleyball Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was set up by Don and a couple of others back in 1955 which seems a bit ridiculous now as there was no-one to regulate over then, but we became the GB side......this was 1962. Myself, the six guys of Avery Hill and five Poles pulled into the team from all over the country formed the squad. We were entered into the West European Championship (Spring Cup) in 1963. This was a mistake by Don and I told him so. The team just wasn’t ready for this yet. Still very new, still having too much to learn about matchplay.

Well, it was a disaster. The players were way out of their depth against stronger, much better prepared and drilled teams. The hosts and opposition were pleased to see GB take part, don’t get me wrong, but on a competitive level we fell short of the standard.

Oh, that was like a breath of fresh air. Thurrock were prepared to listen to how I could help the game expand, they gave me time off for my continuing national duties to the GB squad. Volleyball was picking up in the area and soon we were playing friendlies in the London League and against some Essex sides. John Jenkinson from Southend Tech struck upon the idea of forming an association within Essex along with myself and Graham Hicks and the South Essex Volleyballl League was born.

Not quite. That didn’t come along until 1973 when the South Essex Division merged with North Essex. I believe North Essex came about from the caravaning clubs around at the time but I could be wrong.

The National League was formed (EVA). They provided a Division 1 and Division 2 North and South. I entered Thurrock Tech into Div 2 South for their first season.

We didn’t win the division but managed to gain promotion in the play-offs. Meanwhile I continued to captain the national side, now called ‘England’. Once the EVA had been established along with the Scottish Volleyball Association and Irish and Welsh associations, they dropped the GB tag.

Things were looking good. The team had gained promotion to Div 1 and I was given the opportunity to further my career and increase volleyball awareness with a year out at Nottingham University. Here I established the Nottingham Volleyball Squad.

About this time I realised it was time to retire from the national side and I probably played my last England match at the 1970 Spring Cup.

They were left in the capable hands of Barry Wilson, one of John’s colleagues from Southend. That particular season the team did run into some problems, mainly to do with EVA’s regulations.

Well, the sports hall provided for our home games was deemed to have too low a ceiling for the commencement of volleyball. This was reported to the EVA and they ordered all of our home games to be played away. At this level, it is such a huge disadvantage to give away your home advantage that, eventually Thurrock was relegated.

Well, we had to find another venue for the season 71/72, which we did in Barking Tech and we were now playing under Barking & Havering. We toyed with allsorts of names. Some ridiculous concoctions like ‘Bar-Ving’ desperately trying to look for an identity for the squad. We were promoted once more and played the 72/73 season out of Romford YMCA

The sports hall was great. Then, a new building but perhaps you can relate the players were largely students and the Y doesn’t have turnstiles so you could just walk in and not pay. I think the YMCA got a little sick of it after a while. I felt terrible about it and we left after a year under a bit of a cloud. Besides, they couldn’t provide us with the 7 hours of court time that the team required.

There was a change of administration within and the registration duties of the club to the EVA were passed on to someone new. Somehow, we had missed the deadline for registering the club for this season. This was a disaster. As luck would have it, Battersea Estonians run by a guy called Arthur Sepp, had registered but had no players - just some Polish guy called Joe Zablocki. Arthur agreed for us to use his affiliation and his one player only if we kept the Estonians name in the team. Arthur was a sweet guy and everso patriotic to Estonia and still wanted the country to be represented in England somehow, so we agreed.

That is pretty much how it came about. Estonians ‘74 played out of Barking Tech, amongst many others venues throughout the seventies. 1974 was one hell of a season though. We finished 3rd in our first season at Div. 1 and were semi-finalists in the National Cup.

No, but this was probably the best spell the Estonians ever had and this carried on for a couple of seasons too. Of course, we won Division 2 a number of times to gain promotion but never Div 1. Towards the later part of the seventies names which you’ll probably recognise were making their way into the first team. Players like Tony Pennock, Pete Guernari, Ian Legrand, and Steve Colpus. Also the Estonian Women were established so the club was always growing. A lot of the players then were also teachers (Tony Pennock/Bob Villars) or very good coaches in their own right so volleyball was slowly being brought to the masses, being made more available.

Ian Legrand went on to coach Malory and is now the national coach of the mens senior team, Pete is still playing National Div 3, Tony, also very active within Essex and with JUVO and Steve Colpus went on to coach Brittainia Women.

Well, I retired from Estonians in the 79/80 season and then stayed on as caretaker for one more year. I still ran 3 other local league teams: Thurrock A and B which worked well as a feeder for the Estonians. Players like Bill Enness and Simon Martin found their way into Estonians this way, as did Mark Barber and Bud. The other team being Thurrock ‘G’ (Girls). These teams continued into the eighties and in 1992 I stopped that too. Finally I retired from Thurrock Tech in 94. They carried on for another season or so but that was the end of them.

Not quite. Steve who was coaching the Brittainia side asked me to help him as a technical advisor to the team. After all this time I didn’t want a position of responsibility anymore so agreed to take the post of Assistant Coach and consultant. You do the drills, pick the team, play your tactics and I’ll take a back seat thankyou very much and tell you where you’re going wrong.

No, far from it. Brittainia won National Div. 1 three years running, won the National Cup and were finalists the other two years.

Yes. Unfortunately there were personality problems amongst the girls and a troublemaker had to be got rid of. Steve couldn’t do it first time round but eventually had to sack one of his biggest hitters. When people get into their little ‘clicks’, take one away and they come down like a house of cards. Shame. From 1997 until now I’ve been working part-time for my daughter’s partner’s business.

Sure, why not. The existing Essex Committee has a spot on the board for me as Vice President and I no longer work for my daughter so you may well see me around once more.

Thank you very much.