LUCY Wicks’s former coach has revealed one of the driving forces behind the Great Britain women’s volleyball battle against the odds – her mum Cary.

Wicks and the Team GB girls yesterday missed the chance to seal a London 2012 quarter-final berth after a straight sets defeat to the Dominican Republic last night.

They now face the daunting prospect of having to beat Japan to stand a chance of reaching the last eight.

But this is a team that is used to overcoming huge obstacles.

The ladies indoor squad had their funding slashed after London won the Games back in 2005 and, after deciding to continue their Olympic quest, were forced to raise money themselves to keep their dream alive.

Bedding down at the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue centre was the only way the team could afford to stay together as a group, while the players, when not training, spent their time phoning local businesses to beg for sponsorship. Many of them quit jobs and university courses to focus fully on their Olympic ambitions.

Wicks allowed her license as a physiotherapist to lapse in order to commit to GB training.

It was at that boxed-up inner-city fire station, though, that former Parkstone Grammar pupil Wicks and the team plotted the downfall of Algeria – Team GB’s first ever win in Olympic volleyball competition earlier this week.

The fact that it took them five sets to do so was of no surprise. The fact that the winning point came at 12.37am even less so. If anything, it was fitting. This squad have rarely done anything the easy way and adversity is the only way they know.

“After London won the Games, volleyball was one of the sports that lost a third of its funding very early on and then suffered further cuts,” recalled Geoff Allen, who coached Wicks as a promising junior coming through the ranks at Poole-based Wessex Volleyball Club.

“Volleyball England made the decision to pump the money that was left into the areas they thought we would do well in, which was the beach women and indoor men.

“That left the beach men and indoor women with nothing. The girls could easily have given up but it shows what determination they have that they carried on.”

In a twist of irony, the funded, albeit poorly, indoor men and beach women both failed to make the knockout stages of the London Games.

“Once the indoor girls got the place in the London Games, they really had to fund everything themselves. They did a cycle ride from Sheffield to London and various other fundraising drives like the Adopt an Olympian campaign,” explained Allen, who took a break from watching China play Brazil at Earls Court yesterday to speak to the Echo.

“That one was the idea of Cary Wicks, Lucy’s mum.”

As well as fundraising drives for her daughter and team-mates, Cary and two of her neighbours housed 16 of the pre-Games women’s squad while they trained in Poole over the summer of 2011.

“She has done wonderful things to publicise and help the girls raise money, co-ordinating pretty much everything all over the country,” added Allen “Cary was chair of governors at Parkstone Grammar so she’s very organised and it’s an incredible thing that she has done for the team.

“Her attitude shines through in Lucy and the girls – it’s fantastic.”

Yesterday’s defeat to the Dominican Republic at Earls Court left Wicks and her team-mates needing a win over Japan on Sunday to keep alive their knockout stage hopes.

Allen, chairman of the Wessex club and a former director of Volleyball England, added: “It would be one of the greatest achievements by any Great Britain team in the Olympics . It would truly be against all odds.

“To beat a team ranked so much higher than them would be a massive achievement. The odds are stacked against them, but they could go further in these Games.”