2009-2010 Italy

Remember in previous post when I said my club team experience in Greece was a nightmare......Well I can't even fathom the word that would describe my experiences in Italy. For those of you who are thinking that the world of a professional Volleyballer would just be great with not a problem in the world, you are about to be proven very, very wrong.

The problems almost started before I left the country. I got to the airport and they said that I wasn't on the flight....even though i had my itinerary printed out. Turns out the club booked the seat a few weeks earlier, then simply forgot to pay for them. In the end I made the stupid decision just to buy the original ticket and get it refunded when I got back to the club. I made contact with my manager in Kuala Lumpar and she reinforced that what I did was fine.

So I got to the club and quickly settled into training. At first everything seemed fine. At the end of the first month when I had been there 2 weeks, we were told that our monthly payments were being pushed back 1 month due to the lateness of the club being allowed in A1. I was again assured that it was only something minor, and wouldn't be an issue.

So the matches began, it became clear from the start of the season it was going to be a tough season. Clearly the recruiting (done a lot by the president who doesn't know a whole lot about volleyball) had a lot to be desired. We had some serious deficiencies and inexperience in most areas of the court.

As well as the club stuff being shitty, socially Italy was a very difficult place to be. Pineto was a small town of 10,000 people. In my team I was the youngest guy, and nearly every other guy in the team had wives and/or family. As well as the language barrier being an issue (especially in the first few months) So much of my 5 months in Italy was spent in my room on the computer not doing a lot!! Except going half way to crazy!

To no real surprise we were struggling on court, we were competitive, but we could not get any points on the board. Of the court the organisation was not great either, we were again asking everyday what is happening with out money. There was always the same answer, that we were waiting on the sponsorship money. Essentially to cut a long story short, the lack of organisation and the internal conflicts were clearly affecting the team on court. What we thought was happening is that the sponsors had paid their money to the club (someone amongst the team had talked to the sponsors) and simply the president was pocketing much of the money. Eventually come January, 2 of the foreign players left, then a week later another left. So at this stage my 2 best friends and their families over there had left. I had played 21 of the 28 regular season matches, received less than 15% of my salary for the year, and had only been reimbursed about half of my plane flights I had payed for. At this stage the club was negotiating with me to sign another contract saying I would definitely get 70% of my contract, in cheque form through out 2010 and the start of 2011!!! (don't know what happened to the original contract i signed.....apparently that means nothing!!) At this time I decided to throw int he towel. It was a complete write off. The only positives I could take out of it was I had gained some good experience against some very good teams.

That I had made some good friends. In particular my Venezuelan teammate Tommy and his Wife Veronica.

As well as my Bulgarian teammate Miro, his wife Dylana and there 3 month old son Nikola.

Oh and also I had some friends come to Italy and I was able to spend some time with them at various stages throughout the season.

Catching up with Paul, a little bit

of man love never goes astray

Trevi fountain, Rome

Caitlin came to visit me as well

Trav and Ellie came to visit also

So i left Italy with not much money from my contract, still waiting on money on Greece from the year before!!! And just wanting to get home for a little while!!!!