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The Heritage Show: 70 Years of Volleyball England - A Conversation with Brian Stalker
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Hey everyone, welcome back to another special edition of That Volleyball Guy – The Heritage Show – the series where we celebrate the rich history of volleyball and shine a light on the incredible people who’ve shaped our sport. This series is proudly produced in partnership with Volleyball England.
This week is a big one – we’re marking 70 years since the very first meeting of the Amateur Volleyball Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which took place on 28th May 1955. That meeting laid the foundation for what we now know as Volleyball England, and it’s only right that we celebrate it in style.
So to help us do just that, I’m thrilled to be joined by someone who has played a major role in our sport’s history – Brian Stalker.
Brian is a former international referee, and during our chat, he shares some fascinating stories and insights from his time officiating at the highest level of the game. We talk about what it takes to be a great referee – the mindset, the qualities, and the challenges that come with the role. Brian also reflects on how the sport has evolved over the years, both on and off the court.
And if that’s not enough, he takes us behind the scenes of his involvement in the London 2012 Olympic Games, and his ongoing contributions to the sport through roles within the FIVB and beyond.
It was a genuinely insightful conversation – one that left me wishing we had even more time to dig into his experiences. If you love volleyball, if you're fascinated by the game's journey in England, or if you're just curious about what goes into refereeing at the highest level, this is one you don’t want to miss.
Connecting Through Conversation
That Volleyball Guy. Hello, I'm Luke Wiltshire, the host of that Volleyball Guy, and if you love volleyball as much as me, then you're in the right place. Hello and welcome to another episode of that Volleyball Guy and another episode of the Heritage Show in partnership with Volleyball England. A reminder, then the Heritage Show is all about celebrating the amazing history of our sport in England, and what more than today? Today marking the 70th year of volleyball in England and the English Volleyball Federation, also known as Volleyball England, england, and the English Volleyball Federation, also known as Volleyball England. 28th of May, then, 1955, was the first meeting of the Association of Volleyball, the Amateur Volleyball Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and today you'll know that, as Volleyball England, and as part of that 70th year celebration, really pleased to be hosting the Heritage Show, which gives those people who've done so much for our sport over the years the opportunity to share some of their insight, some of their stories, and just share their love for the game, which I know um so many of us, you know, are just eager to hear, to hear from them.
Speaker 1:First episode then, with Richard Calicott, was an absolute great conversation, so much so that we needed two episodes, two hours of stories, two hours of conversation for you, and today I'm joined by another really really special guest show today, by someone who's been involved in our sport since 1972, whether that be at a national, international level a player, referee or an administrator. Awarded Volleyball England Hall of Fame for International Referee in 1988-2000 and also a recipient of the Peter Wardale Memorial Award in 2012,. Cev Champion League Supervisor in 2010,. Beach Volleyball Services Manager for the 2012 London Olympics and the man that's behind the successful application and presentation for beach volleyball in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. The list goes on, but I'm really pleased to be welcomed on the Heritage Show today by Brian Stalker. Brian hello and welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Hi Thank you ever so much, brian. I mean that list probably could have been a lot longer. You sent me your volleyball CV. I had the difficult task of picking highlights from a huge list of things that you've achieved in our sport.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't sure what to leave out, but they were just the highlights, really the important, I guess, positions that I held.
Speaker 1:And what you didn't see everyone is that Brian sent me an email that said here's my volleyball CV and here's all the things I've done since 2010. And there was another couple of pages. So a huge list of things to celebrate and to be successful, and hopefully we'll get the opportunity to chat through some of those things that we mentioned. But someone who's been involved, like I said in the introduction, in our sport for a very long time, and Brian personally, I'm extremely excited to have this conversation with you.
Speaker 2:Good.
Speaker 1:Let's get started, then, which I'm always interested in finding out how people get involved in our sports, so tell us more about how you got involved in volleyball.
Speaker 2:Well, I just got married in 1970 and hadn't done much sport since I got married and the volleyball came on the Olympic Games. It was on the television, which is the first time I'd really seen the game. I'd heard of it but not actually seen it played. And the local volleyball league in my area decided to put a taster session on through my business's social organization. So I decided to go along, uh, and I was hooked and I guess the rest is history. Um, thoroughly enjoyed it and uh began playing as part of a company team, a british steel team as it was at the time wow, so, so what?
Speaker 1:what was it about the sport that got you hooked, do you think? What was it about? You thought I'll come back for a second session.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think partly. It seemed as though I was half decent at it, which helps. It always helps when you can pick it up. I seem to be able to pick up the skills quite quickly. I guess that's just a bit of luck. I was always good at ball sports I played squash, played table tennis, played football, played cricket so I had good iron hand coordination. So I guess picking up skills for me was maybe a little easier than some others that didn't have that skill set. Um, so that that's why I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the team aspects, uh, of it. I had played cricket and football at school and won it immediately after I left, and I think I missed the team environment.
Speaker 1:So that also attracted me. Yeah, you're right, it's definitely a sport where you have to understand team dynamics to play volleyball right, and you have to be a good team sports player to be a good volleyball player.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's the ultimate team sport, because everyone is relying on everybody else and I know footballers will say that and cricketers will say that, but there's an awful lot more individuality in those sports than there is in volleyball. You do rely an enormous amount on your fellow players.
Speaker 1:And as I said that that ultimate team, sport uh environment, uh really got me hooked yeah, and, and you mentioned then so the first team that you played for, so that was a company team from british steel. And so tell us a little bit more about training and what did that look like? Was there a social element to it as well, with a pint after training, or was it all very serious?
Speaker 2:No, in the beginning I guess the pub after the game was as big an attraction as the game itself which was also interesting.
Speaker 2:But it was very much a mixed sport at the time because we didn't have enough men or women to create two separate teams. So it was a. It was a mixed team. We eventually did get enough people. Once we recruited more people, we did eventually have two men's teams, a women's team, a junior girls team and so on. So it did develop over the years, um and uh, and we had a modicum of success and we had a modicum of success.
Speaker 1:So sticking with your playing career? Then talk to us about your position. What sort of position? Where did you play?
Speaker 2:Well, I was a setter because I was only 5'8", so that was logical for me. Also, it was interesting because the setter's the guy that sets the strategy, and so that interested me as well, because there was an element of thinking about that rather than just doing. So being a setter was the logical position for me and the team.
Speaker 1:And what was? I love it. I'm five foot eight, and I was a setter too. So there we go. It's just at my school. I'm not sure if it was the same, but it seems to be if you were short, you set, and if you were tall, you hit. Actually, as the sports evolved over the years, you've seen some of the coolest players becoming setters. Now, right, but hey, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, absolutely, I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean all sport is becoming um, a sport of giants. Um, I always remember, uh, watching lots of football on tv and watching somebody like alan shearer and he always looked small in comparison to the defenders. The guy's six foot, and so unless you're standing next to somebody, you really have no appreciation when you watch sports on tv, just how big people are today yeah, no, definitely, and you sharing that.
Speaker 1:I remember vividly my first experience of that. I remember it was a a cup finals. I think it was a cup finals event at the University of Bath and it would have probably been early 2000s maybe. Um, and I remember walking in and I'd been playing with, like my mates who were sort of six, two, six, three, and there's me five for eight, and I remember walking in and seeing um ben pipes and chris gregory and looking at them.
Speaker 2:I'm going, oh, have I got these guys yeah, yeah, just uh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a different thing. I mean yeah, five for eight. You know, I bet you still in your, in your prime, I bet you still got your hands above the net and we're a decent I'm probably only 5'7 now because I've shrunk, but what you do as you get older.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I suppose I could. But I used to do a lot of defensive blocking, which is slanting hands back because I couldn't get over the top of guys that were hitting the ball.
Speaker 1:What was your favourite part, then? I think you've alluded to it, but what was your favourite part of being a setter?
Speaker 2:And what do you think your strengths were as a setter? Well, I just think it was trying to study the opposition, see how they lined up, how they played, and then trying to find a way of bringing my attackers into a position where they could exploit that. So it was just a constant. It was a constant, uh, it was a constant couple of hours of thinking um, and trying to outwit the guy on the other side. That that was, that was a. That was the interest for me, going on and playing the game you're right.
Speaker 1:You mentioned um earlier that it's sort of like the playmaker, isn't it? It's the brains to the operation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's what what attracts people to that setting position yeah, and it's getting the best out of the players you have, because you, you know you've got a fair spread of abilities in your team. Uh, and it's it's managing to try and to bring bring the best out of them, bring the skills out of them that will help you win the match yeah definitely so.
Speaker 1:As a setter, then, and playing. So what was that? What did local league look like back up in Cumbria?
Speaker 2:Well, we had a West Cumbria league which meant there wasn't an enormous amount of travel in, but eventually we developed a county league. So we were going from Workington up to Carlisle, travelling down to Barrow to Kendal. They were always difficult trips in the evenings. If you were going down to an evening game, for instance in Barrow, it doesn't matter how fast you try and drive between Workington and Barrow, it takes you an hour and a half.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter how fast you try and drive between Workington and Barrow, it takes you an hour and a half. You can race and think you're driving like Alain Prost and it still takes you an hour and a half, and it's a dreadful road. It's not a motorway, I mean it's laughingly called an A road, but I mean it's more like a B road. And we had a player one player who who was a bad traveler and eventually he stopped going to the matches because he was always ill when he got there. So so there was a challenge. So so we played in the counter leagues.
Speaker 2:Eventually we, when we felt we were good enough, we applied to join the national league and that was a division three north, I think it was at the time. That was the lowest league and we were playing teams from all over the north of england, down to liverpool, across newcastle, durham and so on. So so that was how it all evolved, um, and we started to go to tournaments like whitfield, sandwell, lots of other places, to spread our wings a bit and try and get a little bit more of a handle on how good we really were. We played in West Cumbria in a little bubble. How did that stack up against people from outside of our area and we were quite successful for a period of time. We eventually got promoted to Division 2. That was a challenge because, uh, we had to travel down to london for matches for weekends. Uh, we, uh. So we were traveling nationwide then and that was a challenge, and it was at the time of the national steel strike yeah and a couple of our players, um, didn't feel they could afford to travel.
Speaker 2:Uh, they didn't feel they could afford to travel. They didn't feel they could contribute to the travelling costs because they weren't getting paid and, as a result, we got demoted back down to Division 3 the following year, which was a shame, because a couple of our better players were two of the players who decided not to travel. So that was a big challenge for us, but, similarly, it was a big challenge for us but, um, but similarly it was, uh, it was a good experience and what?
Speaker 2:was the team name it was british, it was just called british steel. Um and uh, we did have various little handles on that. Um, wasps, bees, all sorts of handles we had over the years to once we got more teams, we had to put a handle on each one. We couldn't call them all british steel, yeah, so we put sort of different monikers on them.
Speaker 1:But uh, but yeah it was british steel most of the time and so um any sort of like highlight or standout moments from your playing career um, yeah, yeah, I did say I had a bad memory.
Speaker 2:You're taking back a long time now. We did actually travel, um, to the european company games because we were a company team. We actually got invited to travel to, uh, european company games, the European Company Games, in two successive competitions. The first one was in Sweden, gothenburg. The next one was in Germany. I didn't travel to the one in Germany, I was starting to try and step away from the team a little bit. I didn't go to Germany, but I went to Gothenburg, which was a fantastic experience. We actually got beat in the semifinal against Saab, the car company, and that was an interesting experience.
Speaker 2:We travelled on a ferry overnight which was also an interesting experience going across the North Sea, but we just had one guy who was throwing up overboard, but most of the rest of us had enough drink not to, so we went, and of course, alcohol prices in Sweden are very expensive, or they were at the time and the football team that was representing Britain was from Leyland, the bus and truck factory in Leyland, in Lancashire, and they had an old-fashioned kit skip, a wicker work big wicker work basket with all the kit in, but it was full of booze and when we got to disembark in Gothenburg you had to go through turnstiles so they had to lift this kit bag with this kit basket over the top of the turnstiles. I think there's a couple of them got hernias that day. All it was it was full of booze with some shirts and shorts scattered all over the top, so if anybody looked inside it was all kit. So yeah, that was good and we enjoyed the volleyball. We played well, so that was a good experience. That was probably a highlight.
Speaker 1:And interesting because you touched on something there, I think, which is like, really, you know, and yes, volleyball's developed and evolved over the years and certainly changed, I imagine, a lot since you were playing, but you know, there's still a fundamental there of the social side of the sport too right, and, like you know, even with teams that I coached and involved in, now it's equally important that after a National League match, we go and have a drink and yeah, it is, it is in all team sports, I mean.
Speaker 2:I've been involved in football over the years and some of my good friends were semi-pro footballers, so I used to get involved with them, and Sunday night was always after their games on a Sunday was always down at the local working men's club.
Speaker 1:So yeah, there was also a social side to that too, so yeah, there was also a social side to that too, and interesting that you mentioned that competition playing other companies in Europe. Does that still exist now? Do you think, do you know, or is that something that disappeared?
Speaker 2:No, I imagine it probably still does. I don't know, I've not kept track with that because British Steel doesn't exist in the way it did. Then there's only really Scunthorpe and one or two small isolated rolling mills that are still British steel and they're not really British steel because they're owned by Chinese companies. But you'll have seen in the press all the fuss about Scunthorpe recently and the possibility of it being taken over by, as it has been, by the government, so it might end up being a nationalised piece of business again. So I've not really got a handle on whether there is still a company games. I suspect there is, because it was a fantastic competition.
Speaker 1:It was a big competition with probably about uh 20 different sports um being played, so so yeah, I would imagine still going and I know we're going to come on to this as part of the conversation, but it's so interesting to hear that you're obviously as as I alluded to in the introduction, you're very involved in the 2012 olympic games and the subsequent Commonwealth Games, and interesting to hear that your introduction to volleyball was through watching an Olympic volleyball match and a legacy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. It was, as I say. Volleyball wasn't and still isn't a main league sport. It's laughingly called a minority sport. I guess if it was funded differently I don't really want to get into the politics, but if it was funded differently it maybe wouldn't be a minority sport. Um, I mean the, the sports organizations. National government funded sports organizations still give far too much money to the rich sports who don't really need it. Uh, so I think there should be a a bit more of a of an even distribution of money. Um, the one thing you cannot do is progress without it. Yeah, um, so if you're a minority sport, actually becoming a mainstream sport is exceedingly difficult without a major entrepreneur coming along and throwing millions and billions of pounds at it. I just think if the government distributed the money a bit more evenly to bring the level of some of the other sports up, it would be much better, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I was I was reading somewhere today. I can't remember where I saw it might have been on the social media website, but volleyball is, um one of the fastest growing sports of generation z at the moment. In terms of this, it's going for a bit of a boom at the moment and it would be, you know, a plea to, to the funding bodies and the people that fund these sports, that actually volleyball needs some more money.
Speaker 2:But hey, hey yeah, well, we spent a lot of time after london 2012 trying to bring um an fvb world tour event to london. Yeah, um and I worked with rich calicut um to to try and make that happen, and we tried for three or four years to make it happen and it just wasn't possible to get enough money into it. I mean, to run a World Series event, fivb only put a nominal amount of money into it. You need to generate your own money to put it on and we just couldn't do that. I was amazed we couldn't do that in london. Also, finding it a venue was not easy in london yeah I mean, you know you couldn't.
Speaker 2:You couldn't do a horse gas parade again like we did in 2012. So so, finding a, we were looking to to do it in canary wharf, where there is already a an event, run it every year.
Speaker 2:So we were looking to to try and do canary wharf where there is already an event run every year, so we were looking to to try and do it there, because that would have been quite iconic as well, but it just never came off, just cash cash, yeah, and maybe we'll come on to that part of your volleyball cv and resume later on, but I wanted to.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I really wanted to to discuss and chat to you about is your refereeing, your time refereeing, because obviously you've achieved great things in refereeing and, I think, something that we probably haven't represented enough yet on this podcast. So I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to talk to you about you know refereeing, so can we start a little bit more about how you got involved into refereeing? And we've talked about your playing days, but let's move on to the refereeing side of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I was playing locally, as we've just discussed, there was a lack of referees. People just wanted to play, they didn't want to referee, excuse me. So it was always very difficult finding referees to do games, so we used to referee each other's games. So I stuck my hand up, had a go, excuse me, good, drive through that's all right and so I started getting involved.
Speaker 2:then the local league put some courses on so I got a qualification and then found after a period of time I was enjoying the refereeing more than I was enjoying the playing still enjoying both, but I think on balance the refereeing was starting to take over. So that's when I started to look to try and improve. So trying to get regraded, moved up the ladder, started getting National League games and so on and so forth. So it started locally only because of a lack of referees. So I started doing it and found I liked it.
Speaker 1:What was it specifically that you liked, then? Because obviously it's not for everybody. You know some people and, especially if you're an ex-player, some people love doing it and some people just don't want to go anywhere near the ref stand. So what was it specifically about refereeing that you enjoyed?
Speaker 2:You know, I really don't know. It's very difficult to say yes. Now that was the thing, that really there's an element of control which I enjoyed. There was also an element of it was interesting. It was interesting to watch the teams play. I talked about being a setter and I think it was a logical extension of that. I've actually been interested in the philosophy of how the game was played and trying to make sure it was played fairly. I didn't don't still like people who cheat at whatever sport, which is why I don't like footballers falling all over the place like they do now, just like paper dolls falling over. So that element also interested me and, as I say, as I moved on, I started to also find it interesting helping others. That really, uh, and I still have still do. I still volunteer locally in in a number of sports um, running, triathlon and others, um, so getting the best out of other people. It still forms part of my psyche.
Speaker 1:And you're right, I think if you're interested in the sport, and leading from being a setter, I think that's quite accurate. I think if you're a setter you sort of understand the game and you probably have a referee who's played the sport as well, you can probably almost guess what's going to happen next when you ref. But I guess that's probably Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you shouldn't prejudge, of course, as we tell every referee.
Speaker 2:But yes, there is an element of being one step ahead of the game, and the higher up the tree you go, the more you have to be, because it's much quicker. The game's much faster. The higher up the leagues you go, the game is quicker, more complex strategically, so there's a bit more thinking to be done. I also liked it was very similar to prepping for a game.
Speaker 2:Interestingly, I am interested in sports psychology. I do think that and this was part of the presentation I made to a local school recently sport is sort of 40% skill and 60% brain. The brain is the biggest muscle in your body and it's the one that you need to train the most, because it's the brain that you need to train the most, because it's the brain that makes you play well. We can teach people skills, but we can't teach them to get the best out of themselves and prep well, if well, for a game. You can't just rock up, get changed and go out there, which a lot of people do. And if you're playing casually and locally, then yes, that's what you do, because that's fine.
Speaker 2:But the higher up the tree you go, the more you have to think about, uh, the game. And we did have, um, bernie kilkenny organized a session, uh, with a sports psychologist when I, when we were for some of the senior referees, and um, a guy called john sire and he wrote a book called sportinging Body Mind with John Connolly. Now John Sire happened to be at university with Bernard in Scotland. That's how they met and that's how he knew and he charged a fortune to do sessions but because Bernard was a friend from university days, he did it on a cheap price. We did a full weekend session with him and he was the sports psychologist for Tottenham Hotspur back in back in the the 90s, when they were winning at cups and and doing well in Europe.
Speaker 2:Um, uh, ricky Velia, ozzy Adelis, that that generation he was their sports psychologist and and that was unusual because not many teams had sports psychologists in those days he was one of the first and he did some sessions for us. And right to the end of my refereeing career I still used his book and I used one of the techniques out of that book. I used to use one of the techniques out of that book before every major match.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask you what that technique is. Now, brian, you can't leave us on a cliffhanger like that.
Speaker 2:Well, I could but but I won't and it and it's. It's very easy, it's it's before the game, before whatever much, whether you're playing. I've just had a conversation with a young local triathlete who's actually, uh, doing particularly well internationally but, um, about prepping, because he doesn't think he prepares properly, because he gets very anxious before the start. Being nervous before the start of a match isn't a problem, but it's being able to control it in meaningful terms. The technique. One of the techniques, and the one that I found the most successful, is find yourself a space where there's peace and quiet. Just you Close your eyes.
Speaker 2:Imagine you're sitting behind a desk in front of an open window looking out onto an idyllic, sunny country scene. In front of you you have a piece of paper and a pencil. You write down all of the things that are troubling you at that time. It might have been a bad car journey to get to the game. It might have been a row with a relative, friend, wife, child, could be anything.
Speaker 2:Write down those things that are blocking you having a good game. Write those things down on a piece of paper. Fold that piece of paper up and put it in a little box that's in front of you. Lift the lid, put it in the box and close the lid. You've now parked all those negative feelings in that box. Open your eyes, go do the game. What you have to do at the end of the game is go back, find that same quiet space in that same room, open the box, open that piece of paper and look at all those negative things that were troubling you. Because they haven't gone away. They're still there and you need to face them. But you need to face them after the game. Love it. That always seemed to work for me.
Speaker 2:It might not work for everybody but, that particular technique out of the book and the one that he spoke to us about was was, uh, worked for me. He was an interesting guy. He had us in a blacked out, darkened room all sitting on a dining chair type of chair, a simple plain chair and by the time he'd finished speaking you couldn't feel the chair. You felt you were floating. He was just an amazing guy. How he did it, I don't know. He just kept getting us to think about what was touching the body and yeah, that was fascinating.
Speaker 2:He moved me into a different arena about how I thought and prepped for my matches and I think we're gonna.
Speaker 1:I'd like to come on to that, especially as your you know in your senior career as a international referee and how you prep for some of your matches, but loved, yeah, thank you for that insight. I mean, I'm personally, I'm a huge mindset man myself is what I do in my work as well, and I think, um, just sharing techniques like that's so important, um, yeah, yeah, and I've often thought, brian, like you take a sport like um diving, olympic diving into a swimming pool right, like it's not the skill that lets people down or wins the gold medal, it's the mindset, isn't it?
Speaker 1:you both can stand up there and do that jump, but on the day who's got the who's got the better who's got the focus?
Speaker 2:who's got the focus?
Speaker 1:absolutely yeah and something you can take into, like you say, refereeing, playing, coaching, even anything absolutely anything in life.
Speaker 2:If you're going to do something like going to make that presentation to the local school that I mentioned, I needed to be focused about what I was going to do. Even though I went in and socialised with the people before the event, my mind was on what I was going to present.
Speaker 1:Lovely. So talking about before we go into some of the sort of international refereeing and your experiences there, I'd be interested to know two things really, actually, I want to talk about. The first thing I want to talk about is when you started refereeing for maybe some of our younger listeners or people that are newer to volleyball tell us some of the rules that you had to enforce as a referee, but then that don't exist anymore. How was the game different?
Speaker 2:well, well, I'm the. I'm the worst person in the world to be asking that question. Because not be not being involved in the game now?
Speaker 2:um I don't know how the rules have changed. Yes, I do try to keep up and I do. I do look at the social media and look at some some of the stuff that comes out and obviously the refereeing technique has changed. Um, you used to signal the fault first and then the team that was to serve next. Now, now it's indicate the team to serve, and a lot of these things are driven by television.
Speaker 2:Now that's a subject we could talk about until next Wednesday because, just like I think the VAR in football should just be put in a trash can because it actually encourages referees not to make decisions, and I wasn't happy with the way that, eventually that we went to the challenge system in volleyball. Um, initially it was in beach volleyball. Uh, it started off as um, as uh, trying to think of the name of what they called it, or judges. It was like a judges challenge where the the referee judge, had to come down and adjudicate the decision that you'd taken, because the teams once in the game I think the teams could ask for the judge to come down and have a discussion about that particular incident, which only ever happened to me once, sadly, in my very last match in beach volleyball.
Speaker 2:Oh really, yeah, it was in Norway, and so that was a bit disappointing. But in beach volleyball, oh really yeah. Yeah, it was in Norway and so that was a bit disappointing. But anyway, I won't go into that because that would expose a good friend who was the Jews referee, because I didn't like the way he handled it. But we're still friends, which is good.
Speaker 2:And so there are rules have changed. The rules about the setting, obviously, have changed. The rules about receiving have changed um, actually, uh, being able to receive the ball overhand um from a serve. All of that's changed. Um. I understand why it was done um. It was to try and keep play going, keep the ball flying, as they say. I'm not absolutely convinced. I mean, it makes the game less skillful in some ways and more skillful in others. It takes away a dimension and adds another one, so things like that have changed. Obviously, the sanctioning uh system has changed um and uh. Giving a red card in my earlier days only um only meant the loss of a point. It didn't mean a sending off, as it might today. Um, so, um, so, yeah, uh did you have any?
Speaker 1:did you have many conduct issues when you were on the stand?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, not a lot. Not a lot, I'd like to think, because I was half decent. Maybe I didn't get so many incidents, but I did have. I did do one match, probably the most stressful. The most stressful match I ever did was in Leeds Leeds-Capital City game, where I sent two guys off that match. That was the first time I'd ever sent anybody off.
Speaker 2:That was in a National League D1 match and that was a very disappointing game from my point of view because for ages afterwards I wondered whether anything I did contributed to what happened with the players. And again, I have a view on that, but I won't air that here because that would obviously implicate other people and that's long gone now. It's 30 years ago, so I'm not, uh, I'm not going to do that, but but that was probably one of my worst experiences refereeing was having to send people off. Um, interestingly, in probably one of the my best refereeing moments, I did the and I can't remember the date now, but I did the final, the World Schools final in Antalya in Turkey, between China and Turkey, and I don't know if you've ever done sport in Turkey, but they're crazy. But they're crazy.
Speaker 2:Um, the hall all the major halls are called attatürk, but it was an old hall uh, concrete stairs, it was full. There must have been. I think it had a 3000 capacity and I think there must have been 4000 in. There were. And what worries you when you you come out, come out to do the game is there are riot police in full riot gear with machine guns in the aisles and you start to wonder, well, are they really needed? Am I going to get shot on the stand? But it was an interesting strategy. The Turks are interesting people.
Speaker 2:They're nice people, they're very hospitable people, but they weren't hospitable that night.
Speaker 2:But there's always a guy in the crowd with a drum and a trumpet and they play the national anthem before the game and right through the tournament they played the national anthem before every game somewhere in the crowd. I got permission to start the game. The guys still haven't played the national anthem. The team I've got the teams under the end line. I brought the teams into course. So we were like 10 seconds away from starting the match and the guy suddenly bangs the drum. Everybody stands up and the guy starts the trumpet and they play the national anthem and that goes on for like five minutes and I've got players standing on court ready to play and you can't start the match while they're playing the country's national anthem. So that was an interesting start. And then the first rally that took place. The ball was in. It hit the baseline from the Chinese team.
Speaker 2:The Turkish linesman gave the ball out it was clearly in so. I put my hand up and went my ball, the ball is in and gave the ball to China. Well, the whole stadium, I mean they must have whistled for 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:And of course the Turkish captain came over and I told him the guy's made a mistake. Whether he was biased, whether he genuinely made a mistake, whether he was biased, whether he genuinely made a mistake, I have absolutely no idea. But he made the wrong call and I corrected it. But the Turkish captain wouldn't let it go, so I red carded him. First rally home team red carded the captain and the place went berserk. So that didn't help.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm waiting to make friends, brian right and the.
Speaker 2:We're still up to 15 points then, and the first set went to the chinese, but it was something like 1917, a very long set. The next two sets were 6-2, 15-2, 15-3.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I think the Chinese team were just giving the locals their moment in the sun, yeah, yeah, and then they just bang bang. You could tell when the ball went on the floor on the Chinese side they weren't upset, they were just smiling.
Speaker 2:I think they knew they could win that game any time they chose, but I thought I had a half reasonable game and some of the observers afterwards thought I'd had a half reasonable game, so that's probably one of my best moments was actually doing that much, but it was just interesting. It was an interesting experience.
Speaker 1:What do you think? I'd love to talk to you for hours about refereeing. What do you think makes? I'm going to give you three attributes of a good referee.
Speaker 2:Can on the paper. Have a good demeanour on the stand, not offensive, not a very calm and a good demeanour. Always be polite to the players never, get angry or never show anger. You might be angry inside, but never show anger and always be available to listen to the captain speaking to you. You have to take on board what they want to say within reason you listen give you view conversation over. So it's mainly about demeanor presence, looking as though you ought to be there. So I think I think looking the part is important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You still need to do the business, but I think looking the part is extremely important.
Speaker 1:Do you think playing the game and I don't necessarily think you have to be, I'm going to share my opinion with you now. But do you think playing the game, whether to a fairly decent standard or just having an understanding of the game from a player's perspective do you think that helps you on the stand?
Speaker 2:Yes, it does. Obviously, a knowledge of whatever sport, whether it's football, basketball, whatever sport it is. I think having a knowledge of the sport I mean I have a lot of friends who think that you can't referee football unless you're an ex-pro and that's nonsense, and I think it's the same in any sport. People can develop a skill and a knowledge of a game without having played it. But I think it is easier if you have played. Yeah, you have the base knowledge of the game and how it's played, what's going through the players' minds. Because it's been through your mind, you can empathise.
Speaker 1:And I recall when we had a chat before we had this episode recording that I sort of have done some refereeing and I did it to quite a high standard. I did some National League Division One games and I remember working with a few referees and one of the pieces of advice that I can't remember who told me I think it was either Stuart Dunn or Nick Heckford, so I'll attribute this to one of them was a good referee is one that you don't notice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. It's the same in football If the game's over and you haven't noticed any contentious decisions, it means you haven't noticed the ref and it probably means they've had a good game. And it's the same in volleyball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and sometimes, you know, and from a coach's perspective and here's my little whinge moment I absolutely applaud all the referees and I'm very lucky where I'm based and I'm very lucky that we've got some very, very, very good referees, and I'm very lucky where I'm based and I won't. I'm very lucky that we've got some very, very, very good referees in our, in our area, and we always seem to have some great referees, um, for our national league matches. But sometimes you, you can, you know a referee and again, only a few times in my in my coaching career referee can can sometimes ruin the game if they've, if they start making some silly decisions or making it about them. And I think you know it's a skill, it's a huge skill that I always say to my players now, before a game, um, if there's any sort of questions, but all this reference, well, the referee will make some mistakes, but not as many as you will make today yeah, absolutely absolutely, yeah, yeah yeah, and and you will make a mistake in the game.
Speaker 2:It's almost inevitable, particularly if it's a longer game You'll make an error of some sort. I mean, I don't think. I think there are only two games I've ever done where I've been totally satisfied with what I've done. One of them was that WorldSkills final in Antalya where I was totally satisfied with the way I freed, and the other one was my very last international match which I did the final of the uh island games.
Speaker 2:It happened to be in the isle of man that year. Yeah, and I did the final of and, funny enough, stewart uh was involved in organizing the referees at that. Stewart done and funnily enough, stuart was involved in organising the referees at that. Stuart Dunne and Stuart came up to me afterwards and he said are you thinking about reconsidering?
Speaker 1:Really Save the best for last and I said, well, yeah.
Speaker 2:When I got down off the stand and shook hands and started to walk away, I did think I really enjoyed that. I thought that was the best game I've ever done and I'm packing it in. What's that?
Speaker 1:all about.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I did pack it, it was I packed in for all the right reasons, um and uh, and yeah, I could have carried on and lots of friends have carried on um, you know, into their retirement, after they've finished retiring from work. You know I could name a few, but I won't.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and it reminds me because I used to do some football refereeing as well. Right, and I think there's a skill in refereeing. I remember a very, very good football referee telling me once, when you make a mistake, the best thing you can do as a referee is tell the player that god, I got that one wrong, didn't I? Because it sort of shows them that you're human, right, and I think sometimes that, like I said, some of the referees, they'll come down after a match on the stand and went yeah, I got that decision wrong, and you have a laugh and a joke about it because you know, know, we'll make mistakes.
Speaker 2:I used to be a seasoned. I used to follow football and I was a seasoned ticket holder at Workington when Workington Reds were in the third division and we had some interesting referees that came to Workington and we had a local referee called Colin Seal. He was from Carlisle but he used to do some big games and if the players swore at him he just swore back yeah when they were effing and blinding, he would start effing and blinding back at them.
Speaker 2:so he his view was that if I talk to them on their level, they're more likely to listen. Yeah, that was his view. Now, that would never happen today.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're trying to encourage players to stop abusing referees, hey.
Speaker 1:Brian, I'm going to pick on the spot before I move on to the next part. Two quickfire questions for you. Ok, so did you prefer first refereeing or second refereeing?
Speaker 2:Never really gave that much thought. Actually, I think it depends whether you're talking about beach or indoor.
Speaker 1:That leads me on to my next question, which was did you prefer refereeing beach or indoor? Leads me on to my next question, which was did you prefer refereeing beach or indoor?
Speaker 2:I think, on balance, I probably preferred refereeing indoor, although I think I was a better beach referee than I was an indoor referee. If I was to be hypercritical, the first or second referee conversation, I think first referee on beach, because the second referee is really just there for decoration and net faults that's about it and doing a bit of admin around the table. So that's not really much of a job, to be honest, and didn't fill me with interest. So first refereeing at beach uh, indoor, um, I didn't mind being second referee at all, because there's an awful lot more to do, an awful lot more to think about. There's a lot of.
Speaker 2:There were a lot of game management issues as a second referee um controlling the benches, controlling the teams working with the scorer. Just a lot more game management to allow the referee to do their job.
Speaker 1:I know you mentioned that you don't keep yourself, but are you aware of like, because I know that in I think they did it in the last Olympics, I'm pretty sure, but they're definitely doing like the V&L stuff. The first referee is now on the side of the bench.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which I think is total nonsense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and again it's your point around TV, I guess, making it more interesting for the televisions. But as a coach you have more communication with the second referee. Right, Because they're there, but it's good to see and it's good to see at the National, at the Volleyball England Cup finals this year, using technology more so, using headsets to talk from first referee, second referee talking to each other so they sometimes there can be delays in the game when the second referee walks over to the stand and they have, as a minute, conversation with the ref.
Speaker 1:So I think it that refereeing will always develop as the sport develops right yeah, it was, and as technology improves, I mean getting decent wi.
Speaker 2:Decent Wi-Fi in sports halls was always an issue in the early days. In the early days of working with the electronic score sheet, with working with headsets and Bluetooth headsets. There were always issues and they were just coming into the game as I was fading away in terms of my training, and I don't think I ever did an international match with a headset on.
Speaker 2:what we did do for a good few years was, if it was a broadcast match, um the they would have a light on the stand on the post in front of you and if they were going to do a slow motion. If tv were going to do a slow motion replay of the previous point, the, the it would come up red and you and you would have to wait until that light went out before you authorize next serve.
Speaker 2:that worked perfectly. There was no problem with that, other than the fact that tv want to control everything that they think they know best. Well, they do about tv, but they don't know best about the game. And I would always try to have a conversation with the producer before the game to say to him that I know you're going to use the light system. And he'd go, yeah, and I would say, well, yes, and he said it'll only take about five or six seconds, about 10 seconds tops. And I said, and after 10 seconds I'm just going to authorise service? And I said I don't care whether the light's gone out or not.
Speaker 2:And he went oh.
Speaker 1:I'm the referee here.
Speaker 2:So I didn't mind. I was playing the game. But I wanted him to do the slow motion replay quickly and I said that to him. So it's up to you to get the slow motion replay up and running quickly, because I want to get the game flowing. We want to try and keep the game going. It's better for TV, it's better for the players, it's better for the spectators. So those conversations are always fairly interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it pains me sometimes when you watch, um, like the, the top level now, and you watch the nation's league and the, you know, champions league and olympics and the challenge system, and I I mean I'm not going to talk to you about va and that, because I've got a feeling that might open up a can of worms um, but uh, it does slow game down. You know, I'm all for it if it's quick, quick decision. But when it's, uh, you know, volleyball, it's such a quick sport where you, you know, so dynamic when a decision takes two minutes to discuss it sort of ruins the flow of the game. But anyway, it's nonsense.
Speaker 2:Sports about human beings playing and being refereed by human beings for me is the attraction and the interest in the game. It isn't about being antiseptic, going to the far end of a whatever to make sure that the decision is 100% correct. It never is and never should be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like you said a minute ago, refereeing, you're there to allow the players to participate, you're there to allow the spectacle of sport and live sport. Um, I remember a line judge, a european event that we mentioned earlier. I talked to you, uh, before we recorded, where, yeah, you know someone made some as a line judge and we'll come on briefly to mtos and how your role in that but a line judge on that event made raised their flag to sort of suggest that a player had his foot off the court, um, and I remember the debrief after that event and the referee saying never do that again, because you made me look like an idiot, because I had to then enforce something that the fans and the crowd didn't want to see yeah, there was only one person in the room, so there were 5,000 people there and 4,999 hadn't a clue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the sort of going to the finite detail. There needs to be a little bit of flexibility. People need to play within the rules, but there needs to be a little bit of common sense applied.
Speaker 1:So, brian, we've been chatting for 53 minutes already, which I can't believe. I mean these conversations are definitely. Refereeing is so interesting and someone who's been there done that and got the t-shirt.
Speaker 2:I want just to finish the conversation by talking about your role in supporting other referees, um, and especially around the olympics, and your role in supporting ntos in in the 2012 olympic Games yeah, I mean, I've always, I've always liked teaching uh other referees, other players, the sport refereeing uh always been encouraged to, was encouraged by Bernard Kilkenny to be an assessor uh and to start getting involved. So when it came to the Olympic Games, um, I uh I offered to draw a scheme up, a program up to invite people both for uh indoor beach and sitting to become part of a development program and and we had three years, four years, four years or so to to do that, to develop it. So there was a chance we were going to have half-decent NTOs by then, which I think we did. Actually, I think the NTOs were outstanding at the Games. But we developed the scheme. We looked at how many times we needed to get people together, how people could learn, how people could develop. We held weekends where we got people together, got teams to play for us.
Speaker 2:We worked on technique because we knew that the referee supervisor, who was a guy called jose casanova um, jose was a jose was a very, very good friend of mine, personal friend. I first came across him in athens at a spring cup where we refereed together indoor. Yeah, um, we had some interesting times there because the Israeli team were there and they had Mossad, uh, security people looking after their team. So and you know, I could give you another quarter of an hour on on, uh, moving around the hotel with them and traveling on the coach with them. Eventually, which was a bit of a silly thing we just nudged me and said I think this is not a wise thing we do when we traveled, when we traveled on their team coach one day. But, um, I knew jose was very particular about how the line judges uh, wave the flag, yeah, um, uh, how quick it had to be, how precise it had to be, and my view was I just want them to make the right decision. Personally, I didn't give a toss whether it looked good or not, but I knew he would. So we spent hours and hours with the NTOs just practicing their flight technique, for instance.
Speaker 2:Plus, we had to work with the scorers. It wasn't the electronic score sheet then at that time. So we had to work, and we had to work with the scorers to make sure they were absolutely precise, exact, didn't panic when things weren't going right and something had to be changed. So so, yeah, we drew up a scheme, we had lots of training programs over the time and eventually I had to sit down with Stuart to pick the NTOs for the indoor volleyball and the sitting, and then I basically sat down on my own and did it for beach because I knew I was going to be there.
Speaker 2:But in the end I had to make the decision and the finalists were mine, which at the time was quite stressful because I knew I was letting some people down. Some people who had trained for four years suddenly were told they wouldn't be part of the final cohort and that was tough. That was really difficult. It wasn't the most difficult experience I had at the Games or before the Games, but that was tough. But we spent a lot of time doing that. We took lots of videos of people, showed it back to them. There's nothing worse than being able to see yourself, because that really brings home how good or bad you are or what your little idiosyncrasies are. So we did a lot of that, a lot of videoing and a lot of work with them, and Stuart was immense with that. He did an enormous amount of work with me on that.
Speaker 2:So, yes, and I did the same for the cornwall games and, uh, and because I developed the program before, it was very easy. We had a lot less time to develop them for the cornwall games, but because we already had people who had pre-trained for 2012, we pulled some of those out of the woodwork. Some people had disappeared from the game. We dragged them back, give them refreshers, so it was a bit easier to actually develop them, and that's legacy. That's that's why we do this, uh, so that there is a legacy for the next games coming up. We didn't know it was going to happen then but, uh, fortunately we we had both the programme and quite a lot of the existing NTOs.
Speaker 1:Excellent and you said an amazing job they did on that event. An amazing job London and the whole 2012. And I know Richard talked a lot about the 2012 experience. What was your like looking back on that Olympics and your role in the Olympics? What was your sort of like like looking back on that Olympics and your role in the Olympics? What was your sort of like most proudest moment of that?
Speaker 2:again very difficult because it was very intense. I mean I never had more than a couple of hours sleep a night for sort of three or four weeks. We were actually on site one one day. I never slept at all for three or four weeks. We were actually on site One day. I never slept at all. Went through two days without going to bed. That was when my good friend, the Canadian referee, collapsed on the stand. You maybe were watching that game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember, and he was my roommate on my international beach course in Marbella. So, I knew him personally very well and I knew his wife was watching the match on TV.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh.
Speaker 2:So I had access to a car, so I sent a driver to go and pick her up and to wait at the hotel until we found out which hospital they were taking him to. So that was probably the most stressful moment was actually because it was a personal friend. Yeah, proudest moment was when the British girls came out on court for their first match. It was an evening game.
Speaker 2:I think, it was about a 7 or 8 o'clock kick-off start and it was their very first match and when they come out on court the noise was unbelievable. So that was probably the standout moment for me and that probably hit home just what we'd created and what we'd achieved.
Speaker 1:And Brian. Look, you know, I think we could talk forever about refereeing. I'm going to ask you one final question what do you think we could do to encourage more people into refereeing? Because without referees, you don't have volleyball. In my opinion, it's a huge part of our game, but I'm going to give you one minute to answer that question, so it's a quick fire response, please. But what do you think we could do? If you had a magic wand, what would you do?
Speaker 2:I actually don't know I I think. I think it's um, it's making making the process more welcoming. Yeah, I guess it probably is welcoming now, but make the process more welcoming. Actively encourage ex-players not to fade away but to move into refereeing. I think promoting refereeing to the players and to the teams and to the clubs at every single level and encouraging them to get involved because it isn't as onerous and as difficult. It's actually very enjoyable.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, you're one of many who've represented England at the international stage and I know there's a next generation of referees coming through. So, yeah, someone who's been there and been on the stand myself. You know it's daunting initially but it is very enjoyable.
Speaker 2:And it is you know there's nothing.
Speaker 1:you get a good feeling when you ref a game, so yeah but, brian, I mean, like I said, I think you want to stay in the book, sir, because I reckon there's a load of stories in there that we didn't even come on to. But I just want to say a huge thank you for everything you've done. I know you're not too involved in the sport now, but you, you keep your, you keep your eye out on what's going on.
Speaker 2:But, um, from from us and from all the Volleyball England community, thank you for everything you've done not a problem, luke certainly enjoyed it, and if you want to do it again sometime, just give me a call awesome.
Speaker 1:So everyone, brian Stalker, an amazing conversation, love these heritage episodes. I honestly could do hours and hours, and hours, but for the show today, then we'll leave it there. But thank you ever so much, brian, for your time. Remember, guys, whatever you're up to, keep playing, keep supporting, but, most importantly, keep that volleyball spirit alive. I'm Luke Wiltshire, host of that Volleyball Guy. Thank you for listening that Volleyball Guy.
