Spikers warm up before a drill at the coaching centre on Friday against the backdrop of what remains of the dressing room. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati, May 14: A squall has reduced the cradle of spikers in Assam to rubble.

The Guwahati Volleyball Coaching Centre, which has been producing an assembly line of spikers for the state squad, was set up in 2000 with a thatched-roofed house in a corner of the Judges Field as the dressing room for trainees.

It?s been over month since the storm and the management of the cash-strapped training centre is still running from pillar to post to collect funds to reconstruct the house.

?We have been taking help from all possible quarters, including the Directorate of Sports and Youth Welfare, since the institution was set up. But we are now at our wit?s end to garner the money required to reconstruct the dressing room,? said the centre?s general secretary Amba Saikia Patgiri, a former spiker of repute.

The centre, where Patgiri and former spiker Benoy Medhi impart regular coaching, has a present enrolment of 50. It was trying to rope in the services of Directorate of Sports coach Dibya Jyoti Bhagawati shortly. However, the collapse of the dressing room has posed a new hindrance to the centre?s plan.

?Though we have an enrolment of 50, we cannot bank on them for contribution to reconstruct the dressing room because the economic background of their families are not sound enough,? Patgiri added.

The infrastructure has been the only one in the city where the GSA and others organise various volleyball events. It is also the only institution after the Gauhati Town Club that houses any regular sporting activity in the Judges Field which was once the hub of sports in the state.

The state looks forward to volleyball as a medal prospect discipline in the 33rd National Games with team India skipper Abhijit Bhattacharya agreeing to play for the state along with few other star spikers of the country.

The Assam Volleyball Association has proposed to give a major facelift to the sport within a timeframe of 15 years. However, the plight of the centre presents a different picture of the game in a state that has produced the Indian skipper.