England Indoor Performance Director’s Log – December 2025

This is a periodic update in my role as Indoor Performance Director for Volleyball England. I laid out the high level priorities under which I’m operating in my initial post.

Continuing on from my last update, it’s been a busy period for the England national teams.

New national team sponsor deck

Back in mid-September we released something that had been in the works for a couple months – a sponsor deck. I shared it on LinkedIn, and we asked all the Pathway players/families, coaches, and staff push it out to their networks.

Euros qualification for the U17s

October is NEVZA time each year. That’s our Zonal championship, which also plays the role of European Championships qualifier in alternating years. This year it was the U17s aiming to qualify for the 2026 U18 Euros. There were some interesting developments related to this.

First, Faroe Islands and Iceland opted to compete in the Small Countries Association rather than NEVZA this qualifying cycle. Don’t ask why they’re part of both. That’s a question for CEV.

Second, Norway opted not to take part (Sweden make the same decision last time). With Greenland also not taking part (they rarely do), that left only 4 countries competing – Denmark, England, Finland, and Sweden.

The format was 4-team round-robin hosted by Denmark, with 1st and 2nd then playing for gold, and 3rd and 4th playing for bronze. Gold earned the automatic bid to Euros as zonal champs. Silver earned advancement to the 2nd qualification round in April.

We knew going in it was going to be tough to earn Euro progression, especially with the reduction is spots from 3 down to 2. The men’s team was able to be Denmark in the bronze match to take 3rd. This after having previously lost to the Danes in the group play phase (both matches going 5). Unfortunately, the women lost their own bronze medal match, also against Denmark. It was Finland beating Sweden in both of the finals.

NEVZA Championships for the U19s

This is not a Euro qualification year for the U19s. That will be next year. So it was just a regular NEVZA Championship tournament, which was hosted by Faroe Islands. Finland has recently not taken part in these non-Euro events, and Greenland was not surprisingly absent. Neither Norway nor Sweden took part either, for financial reasons. That meant the field was Denmark, England, Faroe Island, and Iceland.

As with the U17s, the format was 4-team round-robin hosted by Denmark, with 1st and 2nd then playing for gold, and 3rd and 4th playing for bronze.

The England Men again outperformed their Women’s team counterparts. They managed to do just enough in group play to earn the 2nd spot, putting them into the finals against Denmark. The Danes were the clear favorites throughout, and though the England lads did grab a set off them, they fell in the end to take Silver. The Women had a challenging group phase, seeing them come bottom of the group. That put them in the Bronze match against Iceland. Their performance definitely picked up for the battle, but they came up a little short, so couldn’t grab the medal.

Looking ahead

The original plan for the Seniors was that they’d play in the Five Nations tournament once again in January, as well as in the Novotel Cup. That’s what they did last year. The Five Nations (probably re-branded) is moving to Summer, and the Novotel tournament is off this year, though. That means the Seniors will stay in training mode.

In positive news, however, the Nordic Cup tournament the men have played in the last two years will now be an official NEVZA event. Under FIVB’s initiative to make more events points-earning ones, zonal events like this fit the bill. So England gets to earn some points and finally make the rankings. Options are being explored to do something similar for the women.

In terms of the Juniors, we have U18/U20 camp this month. Then in February it’s Student Cup finals and Winter Cup in Italy for the U18s. Plans are in the works for the U20s to do a training/playing camp in Germany (women) and Portugal (men) as well.