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Tamworth Spartans are committed to giving young people the chance to play volleyball at our Junior Academy. We hold two sessions per week, one for beginners and improvers (school years 7-11) and one for advanced juniors (school years 10-11, sixth form/college students or working young people under 18 years old).
Beginners & Improvers:
These training sessions are run by the Juniors' Head Coach, Marta Ophide. They are geared towards introducing young people to the sport in a safe, fun and friendly environment. The aim is to build basic skills and have the opportunity to put them into practice in game situations.
We also take part in West Midlands-wide JUVO, JUVOTO and JUVOLLE competitions where our players can meet other youngsters learning the game and take part in a fun game-based competition, with the emphasis on building skills and having the opportunity to practice playing volleyball.
Beginners and improvers training sessions take place at Wilnecote Leisure Centre on Tuesday nights from 19:00 - 20:00 during term-time. All sessions are staffed by qualified coaches who all hold relevant DBS clearances, with a qualified first aider present.
Advanced:
These training sessions are run by our Club Head Coach, Bob Fordi. They are for players who are aiming to play competitively and want to progress into our senior squads. The aim is to further develop the core skills, building up their ability and knowledge on court, and learning how to apply this in a game.
This team will also take part in JUVOLLE competitions and local friendly matches against other U18 teams. For those juniors who excel, there will be the opportunity to try out for the representative West Midlands junior squads. In 2019, Sam Ravenscroft was part of the U15 squad who were runners-up in the inter-regional competition, and the previous year Jacob Tain and Razvan Lucaci represented the West Midlands at U17 boys' level, and were part of the team who won the entire competition.
Advanced training sessions take place at The Rawlett School on Sunday nights from 18:00 - 19:00 during term-time. All sessions are staffed by qualified coaches who all hold relevant DBS clearances, with a qualified first aider present.
Junior Academy Membership
Membership to the Junior Academy is £20 per half term. This guarantees you a space at every training session in that half term and a free training top.
The Beginners and Improvers session (Tuesday) is currently full. We will review the membership subscriptions at the end of every half term and full term break to see if there are spaces available for new players. All new enquiries will be placed on a waiting list. There are some open spaces available in our Advanced Juniors training session on Sunday evenings.
If you would like to join the Junior Academy, please send the following details to us at juniors@tamworth-volleyball.com or via our Facebook page .
Name of player
Name of responsible adult
School Year
Volleyball Experience
Contact email address
We look forward to hearing from you!
All juniors will be able to try out for an adult squad when they, their parents and both Head Coach Bob Fordi and the relevant squad coach agrees it is appropriate, and we have many academy graduates starring in all five of our competitive adult teams.
Accreditation and safeguarding
Tamworth Spartans is accredited with Volleyball England.
For more details on our Junior Academy, please contact junior development officer Cindy Perkins by emailing juniors@tamworth-volleyball.com or check out our Facebook page.
The club's safeguarding policy can be found here. To raise a welfare or safeguarding concern, welfare officer Marta Ophide can be reached at welfare@tamworth-volleyball.com

Meet The Team

Junior development officer
Lauren Fridlington

Assistant coach
Kerrie Hunter

Guest coach
Bob Fordi
UKCC Level 2

Assistant coach
Laura Labunet

Head coach & club welfare officer
Marta Ophide
UKCC Level 1

Assistant coach
Milan Hak
Junior coaching team
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