Hackney Basketball will begin their trials for the London Youth Games on Wednesday. Last year the women’s team had a great run ultimately finishing third. They will be hoping they can improve upon this result and bring home the gold medal this time around.
It was a different story for the men’s team. A tough series of fixtures in the qualifiers saw them finish ninth in the tournament and fail to make the finals for the second year in a row. With many great teams based in London, Coach Ashley Fagan-Cooper knows that it will take a great effort to be able to reverse their fortunes from last year’s disappointing performance.
Both teams will be in pursuit of Southwark, the reigning champions in the London Youth Games Basketball tournament in both the men’s and women’s categories. The South London teams “have set the standard and dominated basketball last year by taking home both championships.” Ashley Fagan-Cooper has maintained that they must aim to perform to Southwark’s championship-winning standards.
The Hackney women’s team impressed with last year’s efforts to pick up a bronze model. Assistant Coach Mohammed Giacche believes that they will take the next step this time around. “We are lucky in that the core of our team last year are eligible to play again this year. Everyone’s first Youth Games can be a real shock to the system with so many games in such a short space of time.”
Basketball qualifiers are played over the course of a single day with a group stage. Then the top two teams from each group that face off in the quarter finals. The final four teams progress to the finals which take place in early July this year.
For the men’s team the ultimate goal is a championship, but just seeing a stark improvement would make their head coach proud. “We always want to win it all, I would not be a coach if I did not push them to want to win it all. However, last year was a difficult one with so many new players to the team.”
Experience can be the key difference between success and failure in this format. With such little turnaround time between games, the more experienced players are able to keep a level head and help their teammates prepare for the next game that is coming up.
“When we played before, we needed to know that it was always the next game ahead of us that was more important. What we did in the last game was irrelevant and we could only succeed by looking ahead of us,” said former Hackney Youth Games athlete Joel Francis.
The determination to bounce back from a tough year was made clear from the outset as both coaches said that they want both teams to reach new heights that have never been seen before in Hackney Basketball. “Our best performance to this date is still the quarter finals for the men and the bronze for women. This year we want to produce champions for the borough to inspire potential new players coming through,” both coaches emphasised.
