Ukrainian Guests Help Save Volleyball Club Smash in Kerkdriel

Bohdan (at the net, wearing a black shirt) trains with vv Smash. Photo: Bommelerwaard guide

MAASDRIEL – Due to a shortage of members, the survival of volleyball club Smash from Kerkdriel is in danger. Thanks to the failure to collect contributions and the efforts of various Ukrainian guest players, the club hopes to turn the tide.

At the end of March it will be two years since the first Ukrainian refugees were received at Europarc’s ‘Resort on the Maas’ in Kerkdriel. A large number of Ukrainians have now found their place in the Bommelerwaard and (sports) associations are also contributing to this. While the Kerkdrielse Badminton Club (KBC) organized a badminton afternoon for Ukrainian refugees in the sports hall of MFC De Kreek a year ago, the volleyball club Smash, among others, also took care of several Ukrainians.

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This came about more or less by chance, explains Smash chairman Peter Maas: “Ukrainians sometimes came here to work out in the gym upstairs. Afterwards they looked through the window at one of our training sessions. We then asked them if they wanted to participate without obligation and free of charge.” Playing member Kees van Baar adds: “That went without saying, because they couldn’t speak English or Dutch. Later we started working with a translation app.”

With hands and feet or not; A group of between three and six Ukrainians regularly reported to De Kreek on Thursday evenings to play volleyball at Smash. On this training evening there is only one guest player, Bohdan. The 16-year-old Ukrainian is busy learning the Dutch language and despite the fact that he does not yet fully understand the language, he wants to answer the questions in Dutch. When asked, he says that he loves volleyball and has also practiced that sport in Ukraine before he was forced to move to the Netherlands. And despite the fact that he would now prefer to live in a safe Ukraine, Bohdan is very happy here: “The people are very nice here, the food is good: I love everything in the Netherlands.”

Example
Van Baar attaches importance to this: “It is very nice for us that the Ukrainians participate, because we have more people and it helps them to have fun and learn something from our society despite all the misery they experience. I think that we in the municipality of Maasdriel are a good example of how it can be done. There is little nuisance and even in The Hague they are interested in how things are going here. I like that, because ultimately we have to help those people, simple,” said Van Baar, who is also a councilor for the coalition party Samen Sterk Maasdriel.

The fact that Bohdan and his compatriots like to play ball at VV Smash is anything but an unnecessary luxury for the association. The club, which has existed since 1955, is struggling with an acute membership shortage. While the association had about a hundred members in its heyday – including a youth, women’s and men’s section – there are now only fifteen recreational members left. And while the club has not charged contributions since 2019. Smash can afford this thanks to the proceeds from many years of collecting waste paper for Avri, but due to the fact that that scheme has stopped this year, that source of income is also in danger of drying up in the long term.

Relaxation
The association is therefore committed to attracting more playing members, in order to guarantee the continued existence of the once flourishing association. The future is currently very uncertain. Because the number of members playing on Thursday training evenings is so low, the club has had to make concessions several times, chairman Maas explains: “You should actually play volleyball with six-on-six, that is the best thing. When that was no longer the case, We started playing five-on-five, but we have now decided to even play three-on-three games, on a shortened field. It’s not ideal, but at least we can continue with the training. let go.”

Maas hopes that Bohdan’s enthusiasm will be followed by his fellow countrymen. “We are trying to see, with the help of an interpreter from Ukraine, whether there can be more influx from Europarcs; precisely to ensure that they have an evening of relaxation, can learn the sport and the Dutch language. And it is of course nice that we also being able to play volleyball with more people.”
More information about volleyball club Smash can be found at: www.vv-smash.nl

2024-03-14 07:41:42
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