Last weekend📆⬅️, whirlwinds 🏀 took part in the second round of inspire league, as well as a friendly for our junior players! 🔥🔥

Steve, our award 🏆winning coach, had some words to share with you all after the wonderful games! 📣📣

"Hi Players, Parents and Friends …you know I’m always harking on about what our sport was like 10, 12 years ago. Some of you will have been getting fed up of hearing me go on about ‘this wouldn’t have happened 12 years ago’, talking about the numbers that we used to get turning up for trials for Junior Championships, etc. You’ll have also heard me go on about the decrease in numbers taking up the sport and the demise of clubs. Remember, remember, remember!

Well, yesterday I didn’t need to remember because somehow it was ten years ago! The newly formed Inspire League has us, Kingston Panthers (Hull) and supposedly Scunthorpe and Calderdale playing each other in a mini-league with more flexible rules about classification, etc.

We discovered as we arranged the First Round that Scunthorpe and Calderdale couldn’t field a team so it wasn’t a great start to the League but Panthers and Whirlwinds came to an agreement to play each other and this would count as a league match and then play a ‘friendly’ when we could use players don’t normally get much time on court.

It worked well in Round One at Featherstone so we agreed to repeat this for the Second Round and Panthers said they’d try to find some youngsters to play. We used this opportunity to make up a team from Saturday Club.

The first game didn’t really go our way, too many players having a bit of an off day but I was impressed by the way they stuck at their task and certainly Captain Ben and Coach Calum had to give 100% and then a bit more.

We decided to actually throw 5 under-15’s on court for the second game (‘the friendly’.) It was a bit of a gamble because Panthers still had some of their experienced players on court. But, if it was a gamble, I wished I’d got a ticket for the EuroMillions Draw ‘cos those kids responded brilliantly, and it was a win by 17 points to 7. But it wasn’t so much the score that impressed me …it was the ‘togetherness’, a bunch of friends, enjoying playing with smiles on their faces supported by a vocal bench and an enthusiastic group of parents and friends.

It was a throwback to those days when Whirlwinds were more than just a wheelchair basketball team, we were a family.

Whirlwinds Juniors were Amy, Emily, Elliot (joint MVP with ..) Jacob (who was also Captain), Seb, Tyler and Eden. On the bench; Cal, Ben, Alex, Mel (who worked so hard on those rotations) and James, with Robyn taking photos. Massive thanks to parents and supporters, ‘the bench’ and particularly the players for reminding me just what a great sport we’re involved with and or putting up with this naturally grumpy old man!

Location

222 Cranbrook Ave, Hull HU6 7TY, UK