TENDRING Volleyball Club are celebrating after having seven members called up for England duty.

Four current and one former player have been picked for the women’s squad to play in an upcoming international against Scotland.

Meanwhile, two of the club’s men’s players attended a training camp last weekend, with a view to getting the nod and playing in another friendly against Scotland.

Both internationals are due to take place later this month.

Tendring are no strangers to having players called up for international duty.

However, this is the biggest number in the club’s history, for senior action.

The women’s contingent includes Little Clacton’s Fran Smith-Daye, a student at Tendring Technology College.

She will be joined by Essex University students Amelia Stamp and Molly Van Essen, both from Manchester, and Bournemouth’s Amelia Smith.

Ex-player Jessica Lane, from Frinton, has also made the cut for the women’s international at Newcastle.

The two male players are Sonny Chaney, from Frinton and also a former TTC pupil, and university student Owen Lamb, from Nottingham.

“We’re over the moon and extremely proud of the players that have been called up,” said Alex Porter, chairman of the Frinton club.

“Three of them started their careers with us when they were 11 or 12.

“Sonny is a product of our youth system and he’s been playing professionally in Belgium.

“He’s coming back to the local area for next season, as he’s doing a masters course at the university.

“Fran is another who started playing volleyball with us and so too is Jessica, who is now at university in Sheffield.

“Their hard work and perseverance has really paid off and it’s nice to see both them and us, as a club, being recognised by the international selectors. As a club, we’ve been going for 26 years and in that time around 35 players have been called up to play for England.

“That’s been at different levels, though, and this is the biggest group we’ve ever had called up at one time for the senior team.”

Chaney and Lamb will hope to have caught the selectors’ eyes at last weekend’s training camp in Leeds.

Lamb, Lane and Van Essen are setters, Chaney and Smith middle players, Smith-Daye an outside player and Stamp a Libero.

Tendring’s main two teams play national-level volleyball.

Their women’s side are in the Super 8s - the highest level in the country - while the men’s team play in the 1st division of the National League.