Glasgow Mets have been the success story of the Scottish season. Twelve months ago, they were fortunate to escape relegation from the men’s first division.

Only the reluctance of Bellshill Cardinals to take up a top-flight place and the fact Team Fife did not have a team for the relegation play-offs spared them.

Team Fife ended up relegated and Glasgow Mets survived to remain in the top league. Not only did they survive, they thrived.

Alan Krawczyk, who had been playing professionally in Germany, returned to captain the team and his setting provided solid foundations for the team to build on.

The team also recruited Eastern European players in off setter Ivan Poupaznik and middle blocker Marek Mrowka. Poupaznik had such a successful season that he was short-listed for the Scottish player of the year.

Mets won the Top Teams Cup early in the season and then followed up by taking the biggest prize in their history, the Scottish Cup.

The first-time finalists squeezed out Rucanor Jets in a thrilling five-set final at Wishaw Sports Centre to take their first major silverware.

It could even have been a treble as Mets stretched Kilmarnock all the way in the league play-offs – only losing narrowly in five sets in the deciding match at Grange Academy.

“This season has been a fantastic achievement,” said player-coach Andy Fleming, “The club has been in existence for 27 years and to be in a position to win a domestic treble, which has never been done in our club’s history, in my first year as head coach was very exciting.

“The club were very disappointed to miss out on the league title but I think any coach would have bitten your hand off to have reached two cup finals in one season.”

Fleming played through the pain barrier to ensure that Mets eventually pulled through in the cup final against Rucanor Jets.

The player-coach played for most of the match with a broken hand.

Only the morning after the final did he find out the full extent of his injury after NINE x-rays and three hours of hospital treatment.  It emerged that he fractured his scaphoid and lunate and will be in plaster for the next fortnight.

The 32 year-old suffered the injury within the first few points of the match but played on for almost two hours.

In 17 years of playing the game, he had never won one of the major trophies in the game and he did not want to let the opportunity pass him by.

“If anyone deserves a cup winners’ medal, it’s Andy,” said team captain Alan Krawczyk.

“He wanted it so badly and has fought so hard for years to get there. I can’t believe he managed to play on through such an injury.

“It was pure desire that saw him through and I think if he’d given up we would not have won the game.

“In a game of football, playing on through a broken hand is commendable but played through a game of volleyball is heroic.

“He must have had to play tens to hundreds of overhead shots against hard driven balls.

“You could tell he wasn’t 100 per cent but he shook it off when it mattered and, in the fifth set, passed a perfect game and it was clear to see how much the win mattered to him at the end of the game.”

RM
© Copyright In The Winning Zone, MMVIII, All Rights Reserved

Pictures by Colin Towers