Super League 2024-25 round 2 preview – Chedgy hoping to team up with daughter for Wessex

The MAAREE Women’s Super League season kicked off in earnest at Opening Weekend, where last year's NVL Division 1 champions played the three-time consecutive champions, Durham Palatinates, and the former England player was there to lend her experience.

Despite a 3-0 defeat to the North East side, she was “really pleased” with the performance of the newly-promoted South Coast side and remains in high spirits about their forthcoming season at the top level.

It is just the latest chapter in a stellar career that began back when she was 14 and introduced to volleyball by her teacher at the age of 14.

Tash learned quickly, and, by 17 had been become part of the England Talent set-up.

Spells at Malory Eagles and Loughborough University followed - along with plenty of senior England caps - but it is the enjoyment, rather than any on-field glory that has kept her coming back for more.

“I’ve been playing for 37 years, on and off,” said Tash. “I was at Clement Danes School in Chorleywood in Hertfordshire when I started, which was, back then, quite a big school in terms of volleyball.”

“Our PE teacher played volleyball so she had a volleyball club and then we also played local league in Hertfordshire.

"Then there was Eastern Regions some of us got into and then I got picked up as a national player through that.”

The evergreen 51-year old, known to all who know her as Tash, has now played with Wessex for seven years and was a part of the squad that earned their Super League status after a hard-fought promotion from Division 1, where they pipped Stockport to the title.

“So I started playing national squads at 17 and went into London and played with Britannia, as it was then, before we merged with Malory.”

“I played for them that first year and then Loughborough [university] got put up to what was Super League back then so I
switched to play for Loughborough for a couple of years and then moved back to Malory again. I then moved to Wessex when we moved to the South Coast.”

Volleyball has taken Tash across the globe, including to numerous Spring Cups in Europe and as far as China, where she was selected to travel to Beijing as a part of the student England team.

She said: “We played in Beijing in 2001, I think it was, and it was the Olympic Village that was going to be for the Beijing Olympics so we got to play and train in that environment.”

“They wanted to practise all the logistics so we had the coaches taking us around and all the streets were closed and we really felt quite special so that was fun.”

Tash has also made several strides outside of volleyball undertaking a masters aged 27, having two children who both paly the sport and now runs a studio with her husband as a pilates teacher and sports rehabilitator.

Her return to the game, following a 10 year gap, came whilst taking her children to an introductory session where Geoff Allen gave her a “baptism of fire” back into league volleyball.

“I knew Wessex has always had a really good reputation as a junior development club so I knew that was in place,” said Tash. “I took my kids along to a mini session and, while I was there, Geoff was taking the session.

“There were three courts going on and he said: ‘I’ll take your two kids Tash and off you pop to the end and go train with the Super League team.’ And that was that!”

Following in her footsteps, Chedgy’s daughter Sophia now trains with the Wessex senior squad and flew out last weekend to Denmark to play with the England U17 team.

But for that, she might already have achieved the dream of playing in the Super League alongside her daughter at Opening Weekend, but, hopefully, it is only a matter of time before that happens.

“It honestly brings a tear to my eye (seeing Sophia play for England) because I know the fun I had as a part of the weekends away with national squads and all the tournaments we did in Europe.

“If we could have one game on court together this season that would be amazing.”

As a club Wessex has continually placed a big focus on its junior set-up and, aside from being a dedicated player, Tash has also stepped up to help, coaching the U18 side.

She said: “We’ve got a huge amount of junior players, but we don’t have enough coaches. We’ve still got a waiting list. We’ve got two or three sites now that we’re training at.”

“That’s really, I think, always been the focus of Wessex... bringing junior players on and developing them as people as well as players.”

The Senior side is coached by Dave Gunter’s and the Whites play their first home game this weekend against the University of Nottingham with a degree of confidence.

It is actually the club's third game of the league campaign, having previously lost to the Malory Eagles in a game arranged for before the big season curtain-raiser in Kettering. 

“We've already had Malory actually, so we’ve played Durham and Malory and really started at that high end of the table it feels like.

"I think we can compete maybe as we go down into the middle and lower end of the table. That's what we'll be aiming for.”

“We would love to stay up. I think that’s got to be our mission. We’ve got a really strong central core of our team so if we can hang onto that and we’ve got
enough in support to come in if we lose anyone. I think we can try aim to be mid-table.”

“Evolve, entertain and enjoy is our motto, and I think we’ve done all of those so far at the start of this season.”

Article by Beth Owen, England image by Barbara Totterdell

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