As part of Goalball UK’s commitment to increase workforce at National League competitions we have asked one of the volunteers who attended last weeks Region A tournament to write a report of the tournament with comments on their first experiences of Goalball. The article below has been written by Callum Howe who is a first year student at Hillsborough College studying Sports Journalism. Here are his thoughts on the day;
On Saturday 13 October 2018 Goalball UK held a tournament at the EIS in Sheffield. This was to be my first experience of watching goalball and to be honest I wasn’t sure what to expect, so being new to the sport I had undertaken some research into its origins and rules prior to attending.
The day started at 9.00am by setting up the courts and making sure everyone was prepared for the day ahead. Teams were represented from all over the UK, there were seven teams in total and teams were represented from Merseyside to Scarborough. The teams were of mixed ability and were spilt into Novice and Intermediate categories. The games started at 10.00am and were played throughout the day finishing just before 5.00pm
After ten games in the novice category Derbyshire Ducks were the overall winners with Charlie Brown from West Yorkshire scoring the most goals (15).
Meanwhile in the Intermediate category after fourteen games West Yorkshire were crowned champions with Ciaran MacMahon scoring the most goals (12).
Having experienced my first goalball event I have a far greater appreciation for the players who play such a difficult sport, believe me I tried the eyeshades on and it is extremely hard to try and save the ball!
