It started off as an idea conceived unformed at one of the semi-regular Messenger Committee meetings. An embryonic notion tagged onto an agenda under Any Other Business.

A tournament for the Reformed Presbyterian masses, open to every denomination and church from the metropolises of Belfast and Derry to the rural hinterland that makes up the rest of Northern Ireland.

Volleyball was the game. Played for years provincially and at various Camps and Conferences over the years.  Just a ball, a net and a boundary were needed to play. But winning required collective courage, undying dedication, and a team with the ability to consistently hit the ball over the net.

The brainchild of that initial meeting grew and became stronger with the location of a venue and the selection of a date. Saturday, 15th April 2023, at Ballyclabber Reformed Presbyterian Church, the spiritual home of RP sport for many years when it hosted a 5-a-side football tournament that now has been lost to legend.

But would anybody come? It was a question that racked the thoughts of the committee day and night. Would they get any return on their emotional investment or the significant sum shelled out on a state-of-the-art trophy? Though the cup gleamed and glistened in promotional Instagram posts, was it destined to become a rusted relic of an unfulfilled dream?

But gradually, teams trickled in. One, two, possibly three, back to two, whispers five, four, four and a half, a rumour of six, five, a garbled account of eight, maybe ten but incomplete, until the final nine materialised.

Nine teams, of course, posed a challenge to the tournament organisers. After ten seconds of deliberation, it was decided that one group of 5 and another group of 4 was the best approach, with 2 progressing each group to a semi-final where the winner of one group would play the runner-up in another for a place in the final.

The draw was made on the morning of the tournament, and with full knowledge of the task ahead of them, the nine teams descended on the hallowed turf of Ballyclabber RPC to find two volleyball courts waiting for them.

The Group Stages

Teams: Cream Bun’s Minions, Cullybackey, Drimbolg, The Fallows and TULIP

The admirable promptness of the teams, on the whole, meant that the tournament got off to a flying start with the curtain raiser on Court 1 between the Fallows, a multi-generational team of a singular lineage and TULIP (Trinity Ultimate Line-up of Intrepid Presbyterians) a team hailing from Trinity RPC with a strong McDonnell contingent. TULIP was also the only team with six players giving their matches the additional novelty of a rolling sub. The match was pulsating from start to finish, with the crowd wowed by the ingenuity of shots employed by both sides. This was typified when Graham Fallows misjudged the flight of the ball, but unwilling to resign himself to a point lost, he planted a bullet header over the net into an unguarded section of the court beyond. The Fallows eventually emerged victorious 21-19, in a match that set the tone for the tournament.

Drimbolg had brought a team of three which was strongly supplemented on the day by Jamie Stewart and James McMorris. Under the instrumentality of John Coulter, they brought passion and energy to the court that was hard to match. They battled to a crucial 21-11 win against Cullybackey in their opening match, cementing their status as the fans favourites.

Cullybackey also did not have enough to field a full team of five and therefore were forced the rely on volunteers from other teams to make up their numbers. The loyalty of these volunteers to the Cullybakey colours however was questionable. This was demonstrated by James Gillespie, a Renwick Renegades regular who inexplicably saw fit to do a press-up during the match despite what many saw as a below-par performance.

In Group A, Cullybackey and Cream Bun’s Minions were battling to stay in the competition after opening defeats against Drimbolg and the Fallows, respectively. Both sides had no choice but to lick their wounds and go again, knowing that with another defeat, their dreams of a semi-final place would go up in smoke. In the end, Cream Bun’s Minions did their absent overlord proud by getting over the line in a nervy 21-17 win, keeping themselves in with a shout of the semi-finals.

Group A continued with the Fallows and TULIP, both beating Drimbolg 21-10 before Drimbolg kept their flickering hopes of glory alive with a win against Cream Bun’s Minions.

In the end, these hopes were confirmed as deceased by mathematics. Even if Cream Bun’s Minions defeated TULIP 21-0 in their final fixture and TULIP finished equal on points with Drimbolg, TULIP’s points difference would not be surpassed. TULIP won 21-6 in any case.

Teams: McCollums, North West, Renwick Renegades and the Southern Presbytery

In Group B, the Southern Presbytery outfit came with the accolade of the team that had travelled the furthest to compete, but they were not satisfied with only that. After comfortably beating the North West in their opening game, the Southern Presbytery, led by Joshua Murphy, faced the McCollums in a pivotal game in Group B.

McCollums rose to the occasion showing a considerable improvement from their performance in their opening match loss to the Renwick Renegades but just came up short in a 21-16 defeat. The victory meant that the Southern Presbytery became the first team to progress to the semi-final with a match still to play.

The Renwick Renegades were a team built on nostalgia and a desire to repeat a folkloric underdog victory achieved in a different sport at a different time. This team however, surely could not be considered an underdog on this occasion, having beaten the McCollums, one of two teams associated with the host church, in a strong showing to start their campaign.

This set up a game against the Southern Presbytery, who had, of course, already progressed. Any hopes the Renwick Renegades may have had that the Southern Presbytery would lose focus in such circumstances were unsubstantiated. There was no drop in performance; on the contrary, instead, there was the laying down of a marker. The Southern Presbytery secured the top spot in the group and maintained a 100% record as they edged out the Renwick Renegades 21-18.

Renwick Renegades recovered in their final game to beat North West, a team whose competition was hampered by personnel changes in the build-up. It was apparent that their captain James Neilly had anticipated a hard today’s work as he came attired in a pair of steel-capped boots, and when in their opening match against the Southern Presbytery, a well-stuck volleyball hit James directly in the face knocking off his sunglasses down into the accumulating muck it served as an appropriate metaphor for how their tournament went.

The McCollums also beat the North West to secure a respectable third place in what was a high-quality group.

The Semi-Finals

From an initial nine teams, four had emerged. Due to a greater-than-anticipated speed of play, it was decided that the semi-finals and final would be decided by best of three games.

The first semi-final saw the Fallows face the Renwick Renegades in what some saw as a grudge match. The roots of this feeling lay in the weeks before the tournament. Both Stephen and Ross Fallows were approached by the Renwick Renegades and were tempted by the offers. But after much soul searching, they determined that blood was thicker than water and joined the Fallows Team. Despite this, onlookers were not queuing up to call this one. In the opening game, both sides knew that the first game could be crucial to the eventual outcome, resulting in a game that included some of the best rallies of the tournament, with both sides refusing to yield. In the end, it was the Fallows who edged the first game 21-18. The Renwick Renegades never recovered, particularly Matthew Magee’s serve, which had been a weapon throughout the tournament, fell apart in the second game along with the Renwick Renegades’ hopes.

Meanwhile, on Court 2, the second semi-final saw two of the strongest teams in the competition collide - TULIP and the Southern Presbytery. Both teams deserved plaudits for the standard of play, considering strong crosswinds wreaking havoc at times and the development of a slough in the middle of the court. Every point was crucial in a match where the slimmest of margins made the difference. TULIP ended up winning 2-0, but in both games, the margin was less than 5 points demonstrating how well-matched these sides were.

Third Place Playoff

Before the final, a request was made by the Renwick Renegades that a third-place playoff be organised. The organising committee said that they would allow it, while emphasising that the match’s result would be unofficial. But undeterred, the Renwick Renegades gauged the interest of the Southern Presbytery.

Southern Presbytery agreed and successfully replicated their victory earlier in the competition, leaving the Renwick Renegades the ones emphasising the unofficial nature of the result.

The Final

Which brings us to the final. The tale of this competition was bookended by contests between two teams. In the opening game of the tournament, the Fallows defeated TULIP, earning the top spot in Group A. But TULIP had regrouped and rebuilt. They registered some of the most comprehensive victories in the tournament and finished the group stage with a greater points difference than the Fallows despite their opening defeat.

As the game began, the trophy gleamed invitingly on the sidelines awaiting the victor’s embrace alongside the first pages of the tournament’s history book posed to be penned. With the prize so great, the tension could be cut with a knife. The opening game was the closest of the whole tournament and was the only game to extend beyond 20-20. But TULIP weathered by their semi-final battle, and wiser having learned from their earlier defeat found a way to win the first game. This was the first game the Fallows had lost all day, and it was a death blow. In the second game, they were a shadow of the team that had opened the tournament with so much vigour. While TULIP went from strength to strength to avenge the Fallows and become the first team to hoist the trophy aloft.

The victorious team have now taken the trophy to Trinty RPC, where it is at this moment proudly displayed for all to see (presumably). For that is where it belongs.

UNTIL NEXT YEAR …