From packed arenas to quiet courts: a story of two volleyball worlds.  

Volleyball, its popularity is astronomical, or is it? Volleyball is the 29th-most popular sport in England. Which begs the question, why? Fawna Jarrold takes to the court to find out how the sport here compares to across Asia. 

With sports like football, cricket and even tennis holding the trophy for England’s most favoured sports, volleyball struggles to compare with players or viewership.   

 As of 2024, there are approximately 30,000 to 33,800 regular weekly volleyball participants in England, compared with a 2021 survey conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications that reported over 3 million people aged 10 and older played volleyball in Japan.  

Kazuma Murakami, an exchange student from Japan, gave insight into how club training in Japan compares to England, he talked eloquently about the culture around volleyball, he said: 

“Japanese volleyball is much more serious, even those who are not playing on the court concentrate on the play, with drills of retrieving balls and providing support with shouts. 

 However, Training here feels much more individualistic, and there is less sense of team cohesion.”  

From speaking to Kazuma, it appears that volleyball is taken very seriously in Japan, who adds that:  

“My team was very focused on winning, so the coaching was more professional.  

The coach would yell during practice almost every time, and there were even punishments if we lost a match.”  

 Kazuma was then asked if he thought coaching here was less intense, he laughed and said yes, and that the coaching in Japan was much harder, and he felt like ‘the god of volleyball’ here.  

(photo: shot by Georgia Greggory, of Kazuma Murakami) 

The overall impression about volleyball in Japan, was that it is taken much more seriously than England. 

So, I asked an English volleyball player named Harry Rimmer, who has been playing volleyball for eleven years, about his experience playing in England. He said:  

“I train twice a week, depending on my schedule, The sessions with my university are very unpredictable with how intense it is.  

It really depends on what the coach has got for us and the people you’ve got with you, whereas the other session I do with a different club is a lot more intense, it’s a lot more focused and the standards are higher.” 

Harry notes that university volleyball is not prioritised compared to other sports, or well-funded. 

He said that There’s not a lot of time either with the university sessions, adding that the training sessions are only an hour and a half, and that court time is shared with another team.  

It became apparent that Harry’s university sessions and Kazuma’s high school ones are almost not comparable with intensity and technique.  

(photo shot by Georgia Greggory, of Harry Rimmer) 

now, in my interview with Jihwan Bae, who grew up in Thailand playing volleyball, he told me about how volleyball compared in Thailand to England. 

specifically, Jihwan talked about how resources in England compared to Thailand.  

After asking both harry and Kazuma about how the sport operated in England versus Japan, I wanted to know more about resources in Thailand versus England, Jihwan reported that:  

“Facilities in International schools across the countries are as good as facilities in England.  

Nevertheless, in general, public Thai schools do not have facilities that I think is good enough to play volleyball. 

Public schools in Thailand usually have football pitches rather than a basketball court or a volleyball court, and if they do appear to have a basketball/volleyball court, 90% of the time it would be a concrete floor with A poor quality net.” 

Additionally, when asking Jihwan if volleyball is as popular as other sports, and if it’s considered a career path for players in high school and college, he said: 

“Volleyball in Thailand is not typically considered as a career path unlike Football.  

Thai Women’s volleyball team is indeed a great team which performs at world stages, but Thai volleyball leagues are not as popular as other Thai sport leagues and therefore is not usually considered as a career path.” 

From the interview with jihwan we found that England and Thailand were similar in their favour for Football over Volleyball, and the quality of resources varies, as it does in England.  

Nevertheless, Volleyball is still one of the most watches sports in Thailand, with the aforementioned Thai women’s team ranking globally.  

Overall, volleyball is treated a-lot differently between Asia and England, and how little emphasis we put on such an interesting sport.  

But don’t worry! Volleyball is on a slow but steady incline of popularity, domestic attendance has set record highs, with a record crowd of 653 people attending an Essex Rebels game in November 2025. 

Additionally, data from 2022 indicated that over 60,000 people had played volleyball in the previous six months according to volleyball England.