Luxembourg, January 30, 2018. It was quite a scare after Orion DOETINCHEM qualified for the 8th Finals of the CEV Challenge Cup. The club had budgeted only for the 16th Finals. So when Levski SOFIA was beaten in the Golden Set on December 20th 2017, the club and the team had to come up with the money in order to travel to Surgut, in Siberia, Russia.
“The club of Seesing Personeel Orion is coming out of bankruptcy (2013) and has one final year of payments left,” head coach Redbad Strikwerda says. “After this season the club will be financially healthy again and we can plan for the future. The reality is that we have a much smaller budget than other clubs, even in the Netherlands.”
So when money was needed for the trip to face Gazprom-Ugra SURGUT in the 8th Finals, the club and team reached out. A crowd funding action was started under the title: ‘Don’t leave Orion out in the cold’. It soon reached the provisional goal of 20,000 € and travelling to Russia was guaranteed. In great part this was made available by sponsors and loyal fans.
Once in Russia the team of Strikwerda performed “fantastic”, as the trainer said. “We won the first set, which was a surprise [Gazprom-Ugra SURGUT eventually won the match 3-1]. Look, you have to consider that we are up against players that are used to playing at a much higher level. Most of their players are better than ours. But quite frankly, I don’t care about that. If we only look at that, we would achieve nothing.”
On Wednesday, Orion will fight for repeating what they accomplished in the 16th Finals: winning the second match and then the Golden Set. “We have to have ambitions, ideals and dreams. We have to be there when SURGUT underperforms and take advantage of that. Reaching the quarterfinals is the goal of the match. If we reach that goal and we have to do another round of crowd funding, we will gladly do that.”
The match can be followed on our website via LiveScore on Wednesday at 20.00 CET.