It’s also specially lovely when you consider that they have two stadiums (Wembley and the Emirates) which are absolute shoe-ins for selection of the final 12 and are therefore unlikely to be awarded the other. Anyway, some more local cities are also bidding to be host cities and given the amount of stick I would get if I didnt here are the link to Leeds, Sheffield and Hull‘s bid efforts. You can also follow them on Twitter here: Leeds, Sheffield and Hull

Yorkshire Events, the guys I am currently working with, won their bid for the 2010 UCI Mountainbiking XC World Cup. I’m absolutely made up that we won it as I was desperate for it to get the recognition it deserves. The real kicker is that, particularly with bid stuff, nobody wants to know if you didnt win the event. This wouldve meant something I was very proud of would be the proverbial ginger stepchild.

Understanably the World Cup bid has been a bit of a long shadow on the horizon for me for a while. It’s been hovering over me like the sword of Damocles, having submitted the bid in late April and it’s actually one of the things that I am most proud of in my career, certainly the item of print I’m most proud of.  To say it was just print though would be doing it a bit of a disservice,  it was a very complex project made up of two bid books, a part CGI part live action DVD and a gorgeous presentation box. I had the pleasure of working with a slew of very good people who all pulled together in the right direction to pull it off.

I’ll post some of the beautiful stills as well as the excellent bid DVD in the next week or so.

The FIVB Volleyball World Championships first round take place at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport on January the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, and to celebrate Yorkshire Events have taken volleyball to the people of Sheffield with this short film.

The film starts with GB Men and GB Women’s Volleyball teams facing off in a practice match from which the ball escapes. As the volleyball makes its way across Sheffield it takes in some of the city’s more iconic sights and is helped along its way by Sheffielders as they go about their daily business. Along the way the ball passes through the hands of some familiar faces such as Premier League Referee Uriah Rennie, Chinese snooker stars Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo and the hotly-tipped-for-2012 heptathalete Jessica Ennis.

The soundtrack for the film is provided by unsigned, up-and-coming Sheffield band, The True Gentlemen, with their storming tune “Toxic Reservoir”. The True Gentlemen are currently on tour playing to packed houses and are earmarked in the music press to be one of the breakthrough acts of 2009.

Sheffield has become the home of British volleyball with the EISS housing the British indoor squads, while the venue is the number one choice for many national teams around the world to stage their training camps in this country.

EIS Sheffield is also the location of the British Volleyball Federation’s (BVF) High Performance office and has hosted numerous major events including Volleyball England’s National Cup Finals and the European Championships