Increasingly Nepalis are joining general volleyball clubs where often people of many different nationalities and ethnicities come together to play this popular indoor and outdoor sport. More on this presently. However so popular is volleyball within the UK Nepali community that getting dedicated teams and clubs together has been easy and spontaneous. In the case of the Swindon Cup the tournament in fact splits equally between football and volleyball, championships of each being played on the day.
Men’s and women’s volleyball teams are represented at the Swindon Cup, and other comparable and lesser sports orientated events year-round. In 2017 volleyball became the National Sport of Nepal (see more at the end of this section) because of its popularity and because of natural aptitude. Below, courtesy of the Nepalese Association of Wiltshire, we provide some images of the Men’s and Women’s component of the Swindon Cup (men’s match in play and presentation of prizes to the women’s component winners):
In the UK, in the summer beach volleyball is also popular amongst Nepali community members – especially because of its very sociable ‘for fun’ nature — such as Deepak Tamrakar (standing, at far right of the image below), who also provides some images below including trophies of when he was a key member of the then Bournemouth Volleyball Club (BVC).
Finally, we provide a valuable article on the background to volleyball becoming the National Sport of Nepal:
Volleyball was in 2017 formally recognised as Nepal’s ‘National Sport.’
KATHMANDU, May 23: A cabinet meeting on Monday has decided to recognize ‘volleyball’ as the national sport of Nepal. The government took the decision after the Ministry of Youth and Sports had suggested declaring volleyball as the national sport.
Three years back, the Ministry for Youth and Sports had started discussion over deciding national sport and it also had publicly asked suggestions to make the decision. Now, the ministry has said that its decision was based on the suggestions from stakeholders of the sports fraternity of Nepal.
Meanwhile football and cricket also were in the race to become the national sport but due to volleyball’s easily playable nature in all terrains and country wide organization it pipped the other two popular sports.
Nepal Volleyball Association (NVA) was demanding that the government make volleyball the national sport since five years. Meanwhile, NVA has welcomed the decision of the government to choose volleyball as the national sport. “Volleyball has completed the minimum requirement to become national sport. It can be played anywhere in country, in any terrains, in a low cost. So it fully deserved to be the national sport,” said NVA’s General Secretary Jitendra Bahadur Chand.
“Every sport has its own specialty and importance, but to be the national sport it has to be hugely popular and should have strong organization. In country like Nepal, these things should be taken in consideration while announcing any sport as national sport,” added Chand.
National men’s volleyball team skipper Em Rana also expressed his delight over the government’s decision. “Volleyball is very much popular in the country and played in every part including the Himalayan region, the hills and the tarai. So this decision makes sense,” said Rana.
National women’s team skipper Manju Gurung also expressed her happiness over the decision. “Majority of the population grow up playing volleyball. It doesn’t need big space for playing so we can play it everywhere. Not only players but the whole nation is happy about the government’s decision of making volleyball as the national sport,” said Gurung.
Source: https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/volleyball-recognized-as-national-sport/