CHESHIRE PHOENIX WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL CLUB

Age: 

​54

 

Classification: 

​2

 

Disability: 

T5/6 paraplegia due to spinal tumour

 

Do you train with another team?

​Yes, with Stoke Spitfires in Div 3

 

What is your role at the club?

​ A Senior Player

 

Why do you like wheelchair basketball? And why did you start playing the sport?

I’ve always loved sport and when I became a wheelie user, the first thing I did was try to find out which sports I could do. I contacted my local wheelie basketball club, Bolton Bulls, and they tolerated me hanging around for 13 years, before I moved area and joined Spits.

 

Why did you decide to join Cheshire Phoenix Wheelchair basketball club?

​Spits weren’t in a league and despite my advancing years, I still wanted to play competitively. I looked for the next nearest club and it was Phoenix.

 

Do you have a favourite wheelchair basketball player? If so, who and why?

Has to be Anna Jackson! Why? Well, creeping to the coach is the only way I’ll get picked for a match.

 

Do you have a future goal for the sport such as going Elite, becoming a coach etc...?

I’ve got a great deal from this sport and as I’m approaching my 92nd birthday, I’d like to give back before it’s too late. Completing a coaching course would be good and also volunteering for off-court duties like being a table official or ironing everyone’s kit. My other goal is to try and get that ball thing into that hoop thing a bit more as I’m told that’s the whole point of basketball.

 

What hobbies do you have?

The ones that are legal and I can tell you about are going to gigs and collecting vinyl records. For the benefit of most of Phoenix, vinyl records are round pieces of plastic with a hole in the middle and, get this, you put a needle on one side and as if by magic, you hear music. After a bit you have to turn it over to hear the other side. It can be quite stressful as you have to coordinate deliveries of vinyl ordered in secret to arrive when your other half is at work. Timing is everything!

 

Do you go to college or university and if so, what do you or did you study?

I used to a very loooong time ago when the world was in black and white. I did a teaching degree and became a primary school teacher for 14 years.

 

​Do you have any cool qualifications in anything?

I did receive a Winston Churchill Fellowship in 2014 after travelling solo around N America for seven weeks researching virtual reality as a brain injury therapy, but I’m not sure that’s cool 😎

 

Tell me one fact about yourself

I hate rollercoasters.