Historical information

Volleyball has been played in regional Victoria since the early-1960’s. During those early days, most competitions, like the founders of our great sport, were run by, or in conjunction with, the YMCA.

Competitions were running at the Ballarat School of Mines and the YMCA’s of Bendigo, Geelong and Warrnambool. In August 1966, an invitation was extended by the Victorian Amateur Volleyball Association to play in the first State-wide event at Monash University. Geelong and Bendigo accepted the invitation with Melbourne represented by Sisu.

For Bendigo players at least, this was the first exposure to ‘international rules’, which prevented upward scoops with open hands, introduced an action called a ‘dig’ and seemed to penalise most overhead actions using the fingers as ‘double hits’!

Over the next few years, the sport expanded through the YMCA movement with weekly competitions starting up in Ararat, Warrnambool and Latrobe Valley. The Victorian Regional Council of YMCA’s proposed the first Victorian YMCA Championship in Warrnambool on 30th March 1968 with an entry fee of $4.00 per team.

The sport continued to grow with additional regional associations affiliating with the Victorian Amateur Volleyball Association (now VVI) who provided the coaching and refereeing assistance needed to raise the standard of play. In 1970, the YMCA Championships started to give way to the Victorian Country Championships with the first ever event held in Bendigo.

In 1973, a re-organisation of the VAVA saw the proposal to create separate Victorian Country and Metropolitan Volleyball Councils. The VCVC was established in 1974 and took over the organisation of the Victorian Country Championships.

For the next 10-12 years, the Country Championships grew in stature with the inclusion of two divisions for open men and women and junior divisions for boys and girls. Representative teams successfully contested Australian Country Championships between Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales on several occasions.

In October 1985, the VCVC voluntarily wound up the Council and handed the responsibility for the Country Championships back to Volleyball Victoria, who by that time had full-time State Executive and Coaching Directors.

Since that time, the Long Weekend in June has continued to be the date of the major annual volleyball event for most regional associations, even though in 1986 the Junior Country Championships were wound up in favour of state and national schools events. A number of regional associations have ceased to exist, as have a number of regional tournaments. Regional leagues were created in both the Gippsland and Central, North-West regions, with Gippsland the only one to survive. Some associations have successfully competed in the State League competitions at various times.

Following the experience gained by a number of regional administrators working on the Sydney Olympic Games, a proposal to revamp the Victorian Country Championship was put to VVI in early 2002. Later that year, the Volleyball Victoria Country Championships Commission was formed to implement the recommendations of the review and take control of the event into the future.

These championships now provide regional players and officials an opportunity to participate in a consistently well-managed event, using many international protocols and a high standard of presentation.

Without doubt, this event now ranks as one of the best volleyball events in Australia.

Source: 2022 Country Championship regulations

The management of the Country Championships by the Victorian Country Championship Commission certainly achieved the objective of raising the standard of presentation, and delivering a consistently high quality event. However, the demands on Host Associations began to take their toll, with several Associations declining the opportunity to host the event due to the high workload. Similarly, the workload of the volunteer Commissioners also took its toll, with the Commission unable to fill casual vacancies. In 2023, the Commission handed the organisation of the Championships back to VVI, who with paid staff, were better equipped to manage the event.

Physical description

This item contains Newsletters from the Australian Volleyball Federation, and other speorting news; it includes the following documents:

11171.22a Goulburn Valley Volleyball Association Winter Competition 1976
11171.22b Victorian Volleyball Calendar 1982
11171.22c Western Australia Volleyball Association newsletter 1978
11171.22d Volleyball Facilities and Equipment - Australian Volleyball Federation Booklet
11171.22e Australain U15 Volleyball Championship Program Booklet Geelong Aug 1984
11171.22f Geelong Amateur Volleyball Association Rules and by-laws and program 1983 season
11171.22g Ansett Airlines sponsored leaflet for the 1st International Coaches Course Adelaide 1978
11171.22h Sports Coach National Coaching Journal Spring 1979 - 64 pages
11171.22i Sports Coach Australian Coaching Journal Summer 1980 - 52 pages
11171.22j Sports Coach National Coaching Journal Winter 1979 - 56 pages
11171.22k Volleyball Journal March 1979 - Article "Joe Hiller retires with interview" 24 pages
11171.22l Volleyball Journal March 1978 - Article "Interview with Victorian Coach Tomas Satamaria" 20 pages
11171.22m Volleyball Journal Sept 1978 - 24 pages
11171.22n Volleyball Journal Sept 1978 - 24 pages
11171.22o Volleyball Journal Dec 1978 - 24 pages
11171.22p Leaflet promoting Australian Sports Development Programme
11171.22q Volleyball Victoria News June 1985
11171.22r Australian Volleyball News 1985-1987
11171.22s Australian Volleyball News 41/1975 Booklet
11171.22t Australian Volleyball News Jan 1982
11171.22u Journal Documentation Service - Dept. of Youth Sport and Recreation 1979