The 2025 Vollyball Victoria Country Championships will be held in Bendigo from 6-9 June at Red Energy Arena

Key information:

Championship Regulations

Team Entry Form

Key dates:

Registrations close Monday 12 May 2025

Team list due: Tuesday 20 May 2025

Key Forms:

2025 Country Championships Division One eligiblity form (must be signed prior to the championship by all Division One captains)

2025 Country Championships Clearance form 

Coming soon

Volleyball has been played in regional Victoria since the early-1960’s. During those early days, most competitions, like the founders of our great sport, were run by, or in conjunction with, the YMCA.

Competitions were running at the Ballarat School of Mines and the YMCA’s of Bendigo, Geelong and Warrnambool. In August 1966, an invitation was extended by the Victorian Amateur Volleyball Association to play in the first State-wide event at Monash University. Geelong and Bendigo accepted the invitation with Melbourne represented by Sisu. 

For Bendigo players at least, this was the first exposure to ‘international rules’, which prevented upward scoops with open hands, introduced an action called a ‘dig’ and seemed to penalise most overhead actions using the fingers as ‘double hits’!

Over the next few years, the sport expanded through the YMCA movement with weekly competitions starting up in Ararat, Warrnambool and Latrobe Valley. The Victorian Regional Council of YMCA’s proposed the first Victorian YMCA Championship in Warrnambool on 30th March 1968 with an entry fee of $4.00 per team. 

The sport continued to grow with additional regional associations affiliating with the Victorian Amateur Volleyball Association (now VVI) who provided the coaching and refereeing assistance needed to raise the standard of play. In 1970, the YMCA Championships started to give way to the Victorian Country Championships with the first ever event held in Bendigo.

In 1973, a re-organisation of the VAVA saw the proposal to create separate Victorian Country and Metropolitan Volleyball Councils. The VCVC was established in 1974 and took over the organisation of the Victorian Country Championships.

For the next 10-12 years, the Country Championships grew in stature with the inclusion of two divisions for open men and women and junior divisions for boys and girls. Representative teams successfully contested Australian Country Championships between Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales on several occasions.

In October 1985, the VCVC voluntarily wound up the Council and handed the responsibility for the Country Championships back to Volleyball Victoria, who by that time had full-time State Executive and Coaching Directors.

Since that time, the Long Weekend in June has continued to be the date of the major annual volleyball event for most regional associations, even though in 1986 the Junior Country Championships were wound up in favour of state and national schools events. A number of regional associations have ceased to exist, as have a number of regional tournaments. Regional leagues were created in both the Gippsland and Central, North-West regions, with Gippsland the only one to survive. Some associations have successfully competed in the State League competitions at various times.

Following the experience gained by a number of regional administrators working on the Sydney Olympic Games, a proposal to revamp the Victorian Country Championship was put to VVI in early 2002. Later that year, the Volleyball Victoria Country Championships Commission was formed to implement the recommendations of the review and take control of the event into the future.

These championships now provide regional players and officials an opportunity to participate in a consistently well-managed event, using many international protocols and a high standard of presentation. 

Without doubt, this event now ranks as one of the best volleyball events in Australia.

Source: 2022 Country Championship regulations

Original Country Championships logo

Chairperson's Trophy Winners:

2022 - Bendigo Volleyball Association
2023 - Warrnambool Volleyball Association
2024 - Latrobe Valley Volleyball Association
2025 - 

The 2025 Junior Country Championships will take place 26-28 September in Horsham, hosted by Volleyball Horsham.

Team entries will open soon