So, why is my webpage titled “The Benchwarmer” ? Whilst playing basketball at Worthing High School, probably sometime around 1983, we played in a tournament at St Andrews High School and were introduced to a certain Jerry Jenkins who was captain of the Brighton Bears basketball team who was promoting the forthcoming Bears versus Panathinaikos game at Worthing Leisure Centre. I, along with my best friend Steve Mansell, attended the game and were immediately hooked !
On hearing that the men’s junior team were holding try-outs prior to one of the Bears games, Steve and I arrived at the leisure centre to find that we had been mis-informed and that there were no try-outs. Rather than go home only to return later we hung around and were approached by the team manager (Brian Waghorn) who offered us free entry to the match if we helped set-up the court. In those days the court was made up of 7 or 8 rubber mats that were rolled out and taped down (in true Blue Peter fashion) with industrial double-sided sticky tape. As tip-off time approached Brian then asked us whether we would like a courtside seat… with one drawback… it meant we were now the Worthing Bears’ “sweat boys” whose job it would be to run onto court after a player fell over and mop up the sweat so others wouldn’t follow suit. This was a role we endured in order to continue free entry to games but it also gave us great access to the players and a millisecond of fame as we were clearly visibly during the Channel 4 televising of the Bears vs. Solent Stars playoff game at Worthing.
After a while, promotion ensued and I was now Assistant Team Manager with responsibility for handing out towels, water bottles and collecting the warm-up suits that the players discarded as they were subbed on and off. This time, not only did I get free entry to matches but got to travel to away games as well and visited such splendid locations as Gateshead, Tower Hamlets and Ware.
During the season the Bears’ statistician left (to return to the States I recall) and I offered my services to undertake statistical duties at home and away games. I was now in my third role on the end of the bench and enjoyed a couple of seasons, becoming respected as providing some of the best stats in the league and even managed to provide stats for the England national team as well as the Turkish and Icelandic national teams. On regular occasions I would also attend training sessions and join in scrimmages when they were (really) desperate.
Prior to the 1991/92 season I was also doing some marketing work for the team and at the launch of the new squad at the Chatsworth Hotel I was asked, completely out of the blue, by player coach Dale Shackleford, why I wasn’t “suited up” for the team photograph. Apparently, I was being offered a place on the team.. an offer I graciously accepted and spent the next three seasons as, let’s be honest, the 10th best player on a 10 man team.
My backside was now in its 4th incarnation on the Worthing bench and although I didn’t get as much court time as I would have liked I got to experience, first hand, the glory years of Worthing basketball, and spend time with an amazing group of players, fans and officials that shaped my adolescent years.
So….. that’s a potted (but not particularly brief) explanation of why this is titled “The Benchwarmer”. And it doesn’t necessarily follow that all the posts will be basketball related… anything from hoops to F1, from family to friends and maybe touching on some serious subjects (but applying my usual non-serious slant, obviously).
I hope you enjoy what will follow…
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