Basketball in Scotland

A 10 minute podcast on the topic of basketball in Scotland, containing interviews of players and coaches within Edinburgh. Dialouge ... @font-face { font-family: "ＭＳ 明朝"; }@font-face { font-family: "ＭＳ 明朝"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria; }span.commentbody { }.MsoChpDefault { font-family: Cambria; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; }

00:00:22 – 00:01:30

NARRATOR - Basketball, currently played by two hundred and fourteen nations. It started off in the USA, with the NBA becoming the prominent league. It spread to South America, now popular in Brazil and Argentina. It’s hit Eastern Europe, becoming the number one sport over football in Lithuania and Bulgaria. China are becoming a basketball super-power, its predicted that USA vs China games will become increasingly competitive.

Its now hitting the UK by storm, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in the UK gives £55 million to UK sport, which is a 30% reduction from previous years. However, £35 million is coming from private sponsorship and the National Lottery this year to help fund the Olympic games. But, how will this affect us here in Scotland? Here are some of the players and coaches who will be affected. We will get their opinions on how basketball is shaping our country.

00:01:34 – 00:02:20

YUSUKE – Hi, my names Yusuke, I’ve been playing since I was ten, so that’s nine years and I play for Edinburgh right now eh cause I’m at Edinburgh University.

To begin with, I was only ten so I wanted to do something I had the option of doing swimming or basketball I did both and I stuck to basketball cause it seemed to be the thing I was good at, I play for basketball and I really enjoy it right now so.

My PE teacher told me that I was quite good at basketball in PE, so this was in primary school and decided to join the eh basketball team in high school and I got on from there, I joined other clubs as well within the town.

00:02:25 – 00:02:47

NEIL - My name is Neil Duff, I’m 20 years old, I’ve been playing basketball for 12 years and I’m the coach of Edinburgh Napier Basketball team.

My cousin actually got me interested and he’s now playing in America for Davidson College. He started going to a weekly basketball camp called the little dribblers, being 6 foot 6 is a good thing as well.

00:02:57 – 00:03:16

SISO - Hiya, my name is Siso Christoph and I’m from Bulgaria. I actually actually started playing basketball when I was pretty young at the age of 7. And, cause my town’s quite small and basketball is like one of the most famous, not one of the most but the most famous game there, so I (laugh) didn’t really have a choice.

00:03:22 – 00:03:48

ROSS - My names Ross Imrie, I’ve been playing basketball for about two and a half years at a club, before that I used to just play for my school team. I had friends that played basketball and I used to go watch them and, after I finished martial arts I wanted to find another sport, so I got really interested in it. It is a very team oriented like you can’t be an individual and win games.

00:03:49 – 00:03:59

NEIL - I like the competitive aspect of basketball, cause it’s a fast passed game, and it’s very tactical unlike other sports. It’s constant running and you need a lot of fitness.

00:04:03 – 00:05:17

YUSUKE - I enjoy basketball because of eh, the adrenaline dunk that we get when we play uh I really enjoy playing as a team an when we, get things right when we train hard and get things right on the court, I really find it really exhilarating to play and I think the best part of it is like when you win eh after playing really hard, it’s so rewarding I think and it’s really cool you know, being able to play basketball I think is really cool so, all that sorta thing put together, I enjoy playing basketball.

You know we actually get to play as a team, doing pass work an stuff, training hard together, and actually building teamwork so we construct a, a framework of lets say tactics or plays which will lead us to like winning a game or playing really well in a game. And em yeh I think it’s a sort of aspect you would probably expect in any sort of team g-sports but I think basketball along withal that there’s this sort of spirit you know uh really good spirit when you’re playing. I find it really, really fun playing basketball rather than say football or something it’s just a wee bit more generic.

00:05:27 – 00:05:59

ROSS - Basketball in Scotland’s very underfunded and if you’re not in a tight knit group or, if you’re not like already in the community, you’re not gonna get involved.

Lately I think basketball has picked up though with the Olympics coming up an more sports becoming more, more well known, more advertised and I think clubs are trying a lot harder to get people involved, but, it’s still one of the smallest sporting groups right now and it’s like everything is dominated by football and rugby.

00:06:02 – 00:06:28

NEIL – Football and rugby are more popular in this country cause I think they are introduced at a younger age. It’s on TV more. The only outdoor court I can think of in Scotland is Drummond. Which is in the middle of town. And I don’t think basketball in Scotland is funded enough because barely anyone knows about it, if you’re not a part of the actual within the basketball circles then you’re not gonna hear about it. It’s not in the papers, it’s like the tiniest column. Sports like football and rugby have got like the back sixteen pages.

00:06:29 – 00:07:08

YUSUKE – I’d say that the most the biggest reason why, this country football and rugby is more popular is because, the environment as in like, you go out to a field you can play basketball or rugby quite easily whereas basketball you need like a good environment to actually play basketball, um you don’t see a lot of courts in the streets an stuff I-I only see maybe one or two in a big town-in Edinburgh I-I only know of, maybe three, so I suppose people have less opportunity to actually eh practice basketball. Yeh so I think that’s one of the main reasons and also football and rugby there, more established here so.

00:07:10 – 00:08:12

SISO – Basketball in Bulgaria is quite different from here in Scotland, I’ll point out some main reasons why. In Bulgaria we start from really early age, what makes me an impression here is that when we are really young we play a lot, but here is don’t know why coaches don’t put a lot of pressure on youngsters so the more they grow up they don’t get tougher, they don’t do fitness stuff, they just are not taught properly. In Bulgaria we used to have like every day practice, here it’s like not, you’d like one or twice a week.

Basketball in Scotland is really good funded. What strikes me here is that basketball is really low level but is improving very fast. I’ve spoken to Louis Romero a guy who is really into basketball here, he is Spanish actually, he came here a year ago, he saying that now the improvement is really big, because there are a lot more um teams playing now, a lot more coaches and people invest in refereeing so basketball is improving definite.

00:08:14 – 00:09:09

YUSUKE – In terms of funding I don’t think there is lack of funding as such. I’ve been down to England, a couple of times with the team that I’m in just now. They seem to be more, it seems to be more popular in Edin-England than Scotland. I mean like a lot of the players in our team eh are English well eh so, it seems to be more developed. People can kind of just casually play basketball and then maybe kind of deviate into a proper club or a proper team, and get themselves better and establish sophisticated players for those teams. So yeh, I think Scotland is lacking that sort of drive or motivation, and I think it’s just to do with opportunities for people to play basketball.

If people are hearing this then maybe they could try it out, join the craze so…

00:09:12 – 00:09:50

NARRATOR - So from what was heard, there seems to be a number of contrasting opinions. In regards to the funding, I’m not sure if the millions of pounds being invested is making the impact that it’s expected to. However, people are mutually agreeing that it is on the rise. We’ll just have to wait, we’ll just have to wait and see how basketball’s future in Scotland turns out.

I’d like to say a special thanks to Edinburgh University Basketball Team and Napier University’s Basketball team for taking part.