Saints and Mitchell's Plain volleyball clubs crowned Top 4 champions

Mitchell’s Plain Volleyball Club and Athlone-based Saints were crowned winners in the men’s and women’s divisions at the Cape Town Volleyball Federation (CTVF) pre-season indoor Top 4 finals, at Athlone civic centre, earlier this week.

The two sides faced UWC, whom they beat 2-1 in their respective matches. 

Saints player/coach and vice-president of Western Cape Volleyball Association (WCVA), Gadija Jappie, says her side have won the league for seven of the past 10 years, finishing top of the log for the past four consecutive years.

“I've been coaching Saints for about 10 years now, as a player/coach, still playing 35 years later,” said Jappie, a former provincial and national player and former head coach of the national beach volleyball teams. With league matches set to start in April, Jappie encouraged interested players to join the club’s training sessions, at Athlone Civic, on Thursdays at 7pm.

Mitchell’s Plain's Clint Stemmet and Saints’ Lameeez Martin were named player of the match in their respective divisions and received the inaugural Gershon Rorich and Anne Siroky awards, named in honour of the two SA volleyball stalwarts. Rorich, who died in 2023, and Siroky both represented the country at the highest levels on multiple occasions

“We want to honour our past heroes. The names of Anne Siroky and Gershon Rorich are synonymous with volleyball in Cape Town and South Africa. They are certainly two of our best players ever produced and continue to the game even after their playing days. Our communities need to know who our heroes are and at CTVF we certainly are going to celebrate them at every opportunity,” said CTVF president, Peter Barendse. There are others like Adrian Strydom, Estelle Williams, Paul Parker, Gary Gabriels who we will also be honouring moving forward,” he said.

Barends and his executive committee have been working hard to restore the sport to its glory days in the 80s, 90s and early to mid-2000 and says he has seen an increase in the growth of the sport in recent years. He said plans are in place to get the sport to be semi-professional within the next year and is looking forward to the inter-varsity clash between UWC and UCT, at the end of March to kick-start the league.

“We are the only district in the country that has three leagues — a junior, senior and a beach league. We are also the only district in the country that has indoor, outdoor and beach tournaments, which attract on average seven foreign players,” he said.

“We have seven divisions in our senior league, 39 teams in our junior League and we have more than 80 teams participating. That excludes the beach players,” he said.

For more information call Peter Barends on 081 436 1349; Gadija Jappie on 083 679 0662 or Clint Stemmet on 067 036 9017