Friday 8 May 2020

Leadonites Basketball secures funding from Sport England

Leadonites Basketball in Herefordshire has been awarded £2,700.00 of National Lottery funding from Sport England’s Community Emergency Fund due to the loss of income during the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.
 
The outbreak of the virus and the consequent shutdown of businesses as of March 23 has left the sport and physical activity sector facing a period of uncertainty.
 
In response, on March 31 Sport England announced a £195m package to help the sport and physical activity sector through COVID-19. Within the package is a £20m Community Emergency Fund, of National Lottery money to deliver immediate funding to those who have a role in supporting the nation to be active but are experiencing short-term financial hardship or the ceasing of operations due to the impact of coronavirus.
 
The grant will allow Leadonites Basketball to operate with a club bank balance in the black for next season and still run up to seven teams, plus intramural matches and still develop new coaches, table officials and referees to to expand the support base for basketball in the Leadon Valley area.
 
 
Tim Hollingsworth, Sport England’s Chief Executive, said:
As the body responsible for the growth of sport and physical activity participation, we want the vital grassroots organisations that make sport and physical activity happen in this country to not just to come through this crisis but to be in a position to thrive again in the future. The £20m Community Emergency fund, made possible by National Lottery players is part of a multi-million pound package of support we are providing to ease the pressure on a huge number of the organisations who are central to the nation’s health and well-being.
 
We are proud to be able to provide vital funding to Leadonites Basketball to help it through these extremely challenging times.
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Leadonites Basketball Re-enters the YBL

Even though the debate as to when the 2020/21 basketball season will start, or even take place for that matter, Leadonites Basketball is still going through all of the necessary preparations to be ready whenever that start may be.

The club has now entered the following teams in to next season's YBL...


- U13s - YBL U13 South West Zonal Development Division

- U15s - YBL U15 South West Zonal Development Division

- U16s - YBL U17 South Mids Zonal Development Division
      (Note: The U16s may be withdrawn from the YBL to compete in the South Wales Basketball
                    Association U16s league)

- U17s - YBL U17 Primis Division

- Adult Men - YBL Adult Men's Preagressus Division (Div 2)


 (We hope to have our U14s playing in the South West England Regional League U14 North Division - We'll update as soon as we hear back regarding our application)
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Changes to the structure of the YBL competitions for Season 2020/21

Leadonites Basketball has now completed three seasons playing in the Birmingham centred Youth Basketball League (YBL). The club has built up many rivalries and friends with the clubs, their officials, coaches, players and followers that we play week in week out and we are proud to announce that we are re-entering teams for the 2020/21 season.

Obviously, at the time of posting this, nobody knows for sure just when we will all be allowed back to playing basketball, let alone competitive matches, but for now the YBL is forecasting a late November/early December start to the 2020/21 season.

YBL JUNIOR SECTION
When ever the new YBL season starts it will be a different regular season set up to previous years with the Junior section (that's the U13s, U15s and U17s) being split into ability divisions.

 
PRIGIS Divisions
The top division in each age group will be known as the PRIGIS Division ("Prigis" is Latin and is pronounced "Pree-giss" and means 'Premier'). Each Prigis division will consist of approximately six to eight teams. These will be the elite YBL teams for each age group and is designed to be the stepping stone between the YBL in an odd season age (i.e. U13, U15 or U17) and a National league even season age (i.e. U14, U16 and U18).


ZONAL DEVELOPMENT Divisions
Beneath the Prigis Divisions will be the Zonal Development Divisions and as suggested in the title these will be organised on a regional basis. There are intended to be three regions in both the U13s and the U15s - East (covering the East Midlands and Warwickshire), the South West (covering Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire) and the West (covering Birmingham and the West Midlands).


The split into ability centred divisions is a new attempt to avoid some of the very lopsided scorelines registered in the YBL over the last few seasons.

ADULT SECTION
In previous seasons the YBL has run with U19 and U23 leagues but the number of entries for these competitions have been disappointing. So this coming season the YBL will be instigating two divisions in both their Men's and Women's leagues.

In each case their will be a top division, again called the Primis Division, and a second division, called the Praegressus Division ("Praegressus" is Latin for 'Development').


The Primis Division will be for teams who have already played within the adult section of the YBL or can prove that the quality of their squad merits inclusion within the top division. It is also intended as being a feeder into the higher rated West Midlands Basketball League.

The Praegressus Division will be for new adult teams and/or teams of players re-engaging with basketball after a period of time away from the sport.

At the end of the season their will be promotion and relegation between the two divisions.

FINALLY
The YBL will again be running its Mini Section for Under 9s and Under 11s with the regular season comprising of a series of mini tournaments played at central venues with the best teams progressing through to the post season play-offs.

And once again the YBL will be running its adult wheelchair basketball leagues.
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Season 2019/20 End of Season League Tables

Basketball England's decision to initially to suspend all basketball in England for two weeks, starting on Friday, 13th March, was later extended to the cancellation of the 2019/20 season in total.

The Youth Basketball League (YBL) followed suit immediately and then later advised that the entire 2019/20 YBL season had been declared "Null & Void" meaning that no match results would be recorded within the YBL's records.

However, here at Leadonites Basketball we still count every match played as valid and meaningful. In our previous post we have shown all of our fixtures from last season - the good, the bad and the down-right ugly! Now it's time to post the league standings at the point that the season ended...

UNDER 17 A-SQUAD
The A-Squad was made up mainly of year 12 players but with injuries and resignations from the squad a couple of year 11 were brought in by coach Jack Powell to beef up the numbers.

Playing in the YBL U17 North Division the A-Squadders started the season off with a club record victory both in the number of points scored but also in the overall margin of victory with a 124-24 home victory over Yardley Defenders. After this the pattern of the season developed into the A-Squadders always being competitive but struggling to close out close out matches and a string of close defeats left the team lower in the league placings than their ability should have made them.

Eventually, the head-to-head victory over WBA D-Squad meant that so long as they completed their final regular season match away at Walsall 99ers the A-Squad would have qualified for the post-season play-offs in fourth place. In that quarter final they would have been away to Coventry Tornadoes in a 'lose and and your season is over contest'.



UNDER 17 D-SQUAD
The D-Squad was made up mostly of year 11 (under 16) players together with the year 12 players who were not deemed good enough to get reasonable gae time minutes playing in the A-Squad.

Despite the year 11s coming off a winning season in their U15 year the previous season there were no pre-season great hopes of a winning season in 2019/20. However, an opening day shock home victory over Hereford Hornets by a 7-point margin raised hopes. These hopes were soon dashed as several heavy defeats followed. An overtime victory away at Worcester Wolves, a hard fought tactically smart home victory over Stourport Spartans and a home defeat on the final buzzer of overtime at home to Bournville were the highlights of a difficult season.

The strengths of the season were the new year 11 players who joined the club as the season wore on.


UNDER 15 A-SQUAD
Ultimately this has to go down as a disappointing season for the U15 A-Squad. Pre-season high hopes eventually gave way to the team struggling for players by the later stages; a surprise away defeat after overtime against a Bromsgrove Bears team who had been comfortably dispatched earlier in the season at home eventually summing up what could and possibly should have been.

Certain players emerged with much credit whilst others should question whether they really want to play basketball and if they do then how they can better contribute to supporting the efforts of their coaches and those players who are properly committed to the team.

UNDER 15 D-SQUAD
Made up of mostly year 9 (under 14) players plus players who chose to step down from the A-Squad in search of more game time minutes. A horrible season littered with heavy defeats against unforgiving opposition coaches. The upside is the strength of character shown by the players week after week. If these boys can come through a season like last then they should be able to overcome anything else life throws at them.


UNDER 13s
Pre-season saw the departure of several players from the YBL U13 squad which resulted in a heavy opening day defeat for a team composed of just 7 players, two of who were year 5s, one year 6 and four year 8s and playing the best team in the age group! Things got markedly better with some rushed recruitment. The following matches saw the U13s handsomely beat a visiting Worcester Wolves team followed by an away win at Worcester Bears; the first time that a Leadonites team has ever beaten a same age Bears team!

Results were up and down after this with defeat at home to the auld enemy Gloucester Saxons, a win at home over Stourport Spartans Girls U14, a win away against Gloucester, a defeat away at Stourport Spartans and a defeat away against Worcester Wolves. Ultimately with just two matches remaining (the table below is incorrect and should show Leadonites having played 8 games and with 16 points) our youngsters only had to win one of their remaining two matches (home Vs Worcester Bears and away @ Stourport Spartans Girls U14) to qualify for the post-season play-offs.

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