Sixty years of Ilkeston Outlaws, an 83-year-old coach, and 40 people on the waiting list
A Derbyshire teacher started a basketball club with a dozen boys in 1966; sixty years on, Paul Booth is still coaching at 83, and 40 people are waiting for a place.
Paul Booth wanted basketball stands in the little hall at St John Houghton School in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, so he pestered until the hall had them. 1
He was 22, a resistant materials teacher just out of Loughborough University, and the year was 1966. 1
The first squad was a dozen boys. "The boys loved it," Booth said, "and when they were leaving school I had to keep them together." 1
Sixty years later, Ilkeston Outlaws Basketball Club is still running, and Booth is still coaching it. He is 83. 1
Sixty is the number the club is celebrating. Forty is the number I keep returning to.
Ten teams and one hired hall
The club has more than 200 members and ten teams, from the under-12s up to senior men's and women's sides. 12
It trains and plays at Kirk Hallam Community Academy, in a sports hall it hires. 1
Volunteers run the club, and players' subscriptions pay for it. Every coach is registered and approved by Basketball England. 13
The junior squads also play in the National League, and most have a second team in the local Sherwood Basketball League. 2
The handover that happened
Roger Ura was one of about 50 children in the hall for the first trial. 1
"We had to catch the ball and pass it back to Paul," he said. "Unbeknown to us, if we didn't catch it and it fell on the floor, you were out." 1
Ura is now head coach of the club's under-14 boys. 1
"The fact that they're still involved is, that's probably one of the proudest things," Booth said. 1
He credits families for keeping the club alive.
"Sons and daughters have been carrying on from what their parents were doing, it's a family club and that's why it's become what it is today." 1
Booth's favourite memory is the senior women winning promotion to division one. 1
"It was very difficult for us as a little club like this but we competed at the very highest level," he said. 1
Forty people on the list
There are now more people wanting to play than the club can place. 1
"We are, thankfully, flooded at the minute for the waiting list, there's at least 40 people waiting to join," Booth said. 1
Darren Roberts, the club's chairperson and a member for more than 35 years, said the gap is on the coaching side. 1
"We are an aging coaching group," he said. "We can train coaches, we've got the facility to do that, we just need people to volunteer to work with us so we can keep the youth programme going." 1
Finn is 12 and has played at the club for four and a half years. 1
He has watched what the coaching costs the people giving it.
"We have got volunteers who don't get paid, taking up their own time to coach us and support us," he said. 1
What the next coach has to do
Basketball England's entry course is called Introduction to Coaching, which used to be the Level 1 award. 4
It qualifies a person to run sessions under the supervision of an independent coach. The standard qualification for coaching at a club is the Level 2 Club Coach award. 4
That course takes learners aged 18 and over through e-learning, five virtual classrooms and two tutored sessions at a regional venue. 5
Learners then plan and deliver four linked sessions in their own club with a mentor. A Basketball England assessor watches them coach a 45-minute session before they qualify. 5
Applicants normally hold the Introduction award already. A coach at their club can vouch for twelve months of coaching instead. 5
Basketball England also asks for membership, and a DBS check for anyone working with players under 18. 4
What Roberts is asking for therefore carries a qualification, a mentor and a season of supervised sessions before an adult can take a group alone. 5
Sixty years
Booth puts the club's survival simply: "People have just carried on with it, generation to generation if you like." 1
Booth said the length of it still surprises him.
"If I'd have thought when I was 22 that I would still be coaching basketball at 83 and still enjoying it, I don't really know what I would have thought telling the truth." 1
References
- 1
- 2About us - Ilkeston Outlaws Basketball Club
ilkestonoutlaws.com
- 3Ilkeston Outlaws Basketball Club
ilkestonoutlaws.com
- 4Basketball coaching courses
basketballengland.co.uk
- 5Basketball England Club Coach (Level 2) course
sportstructures.com
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