My Performance at Basketball

It was ages ago that I wrote about how I did at football and cricket. How I became involved in basketball was all down to a new sports teacher who arrived at Braintree County High School just as I was starting sixth form. His main interest just happened to be basketball, so why he would join a school with so few boys and a tiny gym, I have no idea. There were only about twenty boys in my year, so anyone interested in joining a basketball team would get a place with no problem. I guess the first year was all about learning the game as I can only remember what happened in my final year at school.

The main disadvantage of joining the team was having to do circuit training. We had individual programmes to suit our ability, but it still meant sit-ups with a medicine ball pulled up behind your neck and bench presses from benches hung down from the wallbars. At least it did get us fit. One of earliest games on a full size court was at the American airbase at RAF Wethersfield. Some of the Americans there did give us some sort of competition, but we all found it exhausting. We did play the occasional game against another school, but none of these were very successful. Even more humiliating were the All Essex School Championships. Playing teams from the outer London boroughs of Ilford, Romford etc was totally out of our league.

After all the school exams were over, in the summer of of our last term, the school had an open day. It was decided that we would play an exhibition match outside on a full size court between the arts and sciences. I started for arts, and brother John for sciences. It drew a pretty decent crowd, so we were all trying to impress. It was only a minute into the game when I scored the first basket. It was downhill all the way from there, but at least I had my few seconds of fame.

The only time I played again was when I was at Brighton CAT. The college only played occasional games, and I can only remember a couple. I think we played a girls college at Eastbourne and probably lost.