What is Boccia?!
Until the London 2012 I didn't even know that Boccia existed as a sport. I soon learnt that it was a precision ball game which became a Paralympic sport in 1984. Apparently Boccia has quite a following; a number of friends soon revealed an addiction to watching it.
I'm really fortunate that I get to bring my passion for (particularly grass-roots) sport to my job in business development with the Sport and Leisure sector of a national law firm.
I was fortunate enough, through work, to meet Paul Chambers, CEO of Boccia England at a Sport and Recreation Alliance conference in the summer of 2015. Paul is a hugely enthusiastic guy and spoke so passionately about the sport and the players that my interest was immediately piqued.
A few months later I discovered on Twitter that Boccia England were in need of volunteers for the BE Cup. Since the event was taking place on a Sunday and only 20 minutes from where I live, I decided to sign up. When I was told by Natalie at Boccia England that I would be timing the games, I panicked. Such responsibility for a rookie!
Game day
I arrived at 8am on the Sunday morning as requested to fulfil my volunteering duty. At this point I knew what the sport was in essence, but didn't know the intricacies of the game, so I was really feeling the pressure. However, I was soon put at ease by the guys running the competition, and given a rather fetching Boccia England T-shirt to wear (I felt very official!) and was shown to the court where I would be timing my first match.
The rules for timing were explained to me, and before I knew it, we were straight into the first ‘end’ (there are four ends in a game - with each player having six balls to play per end when competing as an individual). I was struck immediately by the precision of the athletes when throwing/rolling/kicking the balls. Aim is not one of my strongest suits, so to see the athletes getting their balls so close to the jack was amazing.
Boccia – celebrating diversity and skill
Though the sport caters for a range of disabilities, at the serious competitive level (including the Paralympics), there are four categories (‘classifications’ in disability sport) of athletes within Boccia. All athletes have cerebral palsy or other severe impairments such as muscular dystrophy or a brain/spinal injury.
There were games for all four categories taking place that day, and I was lucky to get to time for each of the categories (if you'd like to see the categories see here for more information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boccia). Every athlete I witnessed in the games, regardless of their category, was simply enthralling. The precision with which they threw, kicked or rolled the ball was amazing. In the BC3 category games it was phenomenal to see the communication from the athlete to their assistant to position the ramps and balls to give the precise direction and speed needed.
The strategy behind the game is also something I never thought about! It reminded me of a game of chess, each player having to think one, two, three or even more moves ahead - something I’m barely able to manage in daily life!
The day passed in an absolute flash - I timed 6 different matches, each of them were fantastic to watch (so much so, that I sometimes found myself so involved in the match that I forgot to manage the timer - and frantically had to add seconds back on!). It was great to spend a day surrounded by such talented athletes, and it was wonderful to meet the Boccia England team, the referees and the other volunteers.
I've already signed up to help with another three days of games in 2016 and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking to get more involved in supporting a sport.
Get involved!
So-called ‘Mainstream’ sports seem to gain a decent amount of volunteer support - I know that my sport of choice, triathlon, certainly does. But where the sports are less well-known they can struggle to get the volunteers to make events like the BE Cup happen.
I highly recommend getting involved with a sport such as Boccia. You learn new things, have fun and come away feeling great, and your support will help some truly inspiring athletes take part in events where they can really shine.
For more information about Boccia please click here https://bocciaengland.org.uk/boccia/ or follow @bocciaengland on Twitter. For information on other national governing bodies where you can volunteer or take part in sport click here - https://www.sportengland.org/.
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