Basketball here has had a massive increase in numbers over the last decade, but just how big?
Looking back over the past decade, it’s quite an achievement to see how much we have grown as a sport here.
The graph above shows a huge increase in our Winter Club Team entries (Midweek and Weekend competitions). In 2004 we had 64 teams, this increased marginally through 2013 (81 teams) then the huge upward trend started. 2014 had the introduction of our U15 grades (108 total teams), and the Boys’ U13 grades in 2018 (145 teams). We broke the 200 team mark in 2021, and 2022 has seen us get to 213 total team entries.
In addition to these grades we introduced the Thomson Trophy Competition in 2015, and added the Whelan Trophy Competition in 2016. Both of these competitions comprise a Division I and Division II section, which currently involves 41 teams.
Without a large enough central venue (or even three-four of them!) to run the weekend competitions, we have faced a logistical challenge to get equipment, and people to the ten different venues we now regularly use on a given Saturday. The clubs and Floor Controllers who have done so much to help get these games hosted are to be commended.
Looking back ten years ago in 2012, our weekends had just 30 games in total (60 referee appointments) – though we were split across five different venues post-earthquake (see the example draw above). 2012 also had eight midweek games (16 referee appointments).
Fast-forward to now, and we have 40 games tip-off before 1pm on a Saturday! In total we need people to referee 79 different games (158 appointments) in a weekend, plus add in the 14 Midweek, and the 38 Thomson/Whelan ones and we need to try and make 210 referee appointments in any given week (almost a three-fold increase since the 76 we needed in 2012!)
None of this would have been possible without the huge amount of volunteer hours our community has put in, so we want to thank all of those who put in their time, energy and effort to help get over 2000 players on the court each week – we can 100% say it doesn’t go un-noticed.
