BEACH VOLLEYBALL NEWS

OUR COMEBACK QUEEN

It is wonderful to see Rachal Nagy playing beach volleyball again.  Rachal started playing as a 12-year-old when she joined her mother's Mixed 6-a-side team and quickly displayed a talent that could be developed.  Coached at various times by Josh Brown, Wade Donohoe, and Glenn Horner, she started playing in 4-a-side comps and then in junior pairs tournaments, along with other Townsville girls Vicki-Lee Goodman, Lauren Christiansen, and Emma Spiegelhauer.  With Emma she was successful in winning the Queensland Under-16 title in 2002, on the Gold Coast.

In 2008 she stopped playing to have her son Braedon, and found it hard to get back in to shape to play regularly, especially when she suffered a serious knee injury.  After finally having the surgery she needed in 2012, she has finally made her comeback now to coincide with the launch of beach volleyball at Sand City Beach Sports. 

Rachal has lost a lot of weight, and is looking fitter, stronger, and healthier than we ever remember her.  She is excited that true beach volleyball is back in Townsville and is looking forward to dragging a few other premature "retirees" back.  Good luck Rachal.

SAND CITY - A LIFE CHANGER

Candice Adams had played basketball at school in Brisbane, but then gave it up to play indoor volleyball for her last 2 years of high school.  After leaving school she started playing beach volleyball in 2006 at the Brackenridge sports centre, and decided that beach volleyball was the sport for her, the right combination of sporting effort and social interaction. 

When Candy moved to Townsville in 2008 she knew nobody.  So it was only natural that she should start playing beach volleyball again, as much to make friends as to enjoy her sport.  Well she did that in style!!  She met Derryn Townson who became her life partner, and they very promptly produced 3 little girls.   That put a temporary halt to Candy’s playing ambitions, but now she is back to enjoy playing even more, as it has become her release from the duties of motherhood, her “me time” as she puts it.  

Playing beach volleyball at Sand City has been a game changer for Candy.  Without it she might still be chasing the nightclubs instead of 3 little girls.  Good choice Candy!! 

WAYNE KELLY - A GENTLEMAN PLAYER

Ask anybody who knows Wayne, and you’ll hear something like, “Always a gentleman”, or “Never loses his cool”. We’ve known Wayne for over 30 years through indoor cricket and beach volleyball and can’t recall a heated word from him.  Sure, he is strongly competitive, but always a sportsman.

Wayne has moved around, but always in Queensland - born in Brisbane, then Charleville, school in Rockhampton, then on transfer with the CommBank to Townsville.  After playing a lot of different sports at school - cricket, golf, tennis, 8-ball - Wayne started playing indoor cricket at Indoor Sports Arena Townsville in 1984.  This led him to representative play and then to coaching the Ladies rep team. 

You guessed it - there’s a theme here - he met and married Helen, with whom he now has 2 little girls.  In 1997 Wayne made beach volleyball his main sport when he took the opportunity to manage our new beach volleyball venue in Mackay.  Wayne met Natalie Cook and Kerri Pottharst after they won their Sydney 2000 Olympics gold when they toured Queensland, and even gave them a few tips in Mackay (about nightclubs not volleyball).

Wayne excels at any sport he tries but has done it with more determination against adversity than most - an eye injury as a child, a major hip operation, shoulder surgery - and is adamant that it is impossible to keep him away from a sports venue of some sort.  He has consolidated that statement by moving to a new house abutting the Willows Golf Course.  Wayne confirms that he’ll be travelling to compete in the upcoming “Great Barrier Reef Challenge”, played with beach volleyball centres from Cairns to Rockhampton.  “Beach volleyball has given me life-long friends, from the Gold Coast to Cairns.  It is the best sport I know for friendly rivalry,” says Wayne.


JUST LIKE OLD TIMES

Simon James is shown, alongside “Charlie” Clark, and Rebecca Matheson, some of the old guard who have come back to enjoy the beach volleyball facilities at Sand City. Simon is coaching and 
playing again - perhaps not with the same court speed, but with all his characteristic slices and court craft. “Charlie” has rejoined the canteen management to welcome our players with her bubbly personality, and is looking brighter and fitter than ever. Rebecca trains with Simon two or three times a week and is just as sharp and athletic as when she represented Australia on the Asian tour more than 10 years ago.