BBL Experience

Having been a part of the BBL for quite some time, I now find myself in the wilderness. First, there is no local team to visit. The London Towers have gone on a year’s sabbatical and the Brighton Bears are hibernating. To compound the issue the marketing of the BBL is quite poor (bordering on non existent), so I no longer know what’s going on in the league unless I make a couple of phone calls.

This weekend I had one such call which prompted me to head to my old stomping ground, Guildford. The Heat faced Tony Garbs’ team, London Utd. Driving to the game it became clear in my mind that I was not supporting the BBL (that’s crystal clear). I was supporting the young English talent which make up the nucleus of both teams. Having coached most of their players at some stage in their careers, it was easy for me to relate to both clubs; therefore hiking to the game was not a chore. This however would have been the case if I could not identify with the players in anyway.

Apart from the Heat blazing Garbs’ crew by 13-points, Guildford were up as much as 20 at one stage. The officiating at the game was 'piss-poor'!! I thought it was bad in my day as a coach – but what I saw on Saturday was just simply atrocious! At one stage London’s Phillip Perry and the Heat’s Chad McKnight had a verbal confrontation during a timeout at mid-court. An official stood in front of them drinking water and said nothing. This confrontation was one of many the two were having throughout the course of the game. The question I asked was, ‘why are you allowing this situation to escalate?’ As we’ve seen in the past, if the referees don’t take control, the trash talking will undoubtedly turn ugly!

I can only hope that my return to a BBL match-up in the future is a little more enjoyable. It was great catching up with the guys after the game; I have much love for both teams and their coaches. However, the whole English professional league is far from where it needs to be, in the mid to late 90’s it was huge, to see it degenerate into local league is not something you want to witness.