WBBL All-Star Georgia Gayle calls for greater communication to aid basketball's growth

The Sheffield Hatters star and Great Britain international garnered enough votes from her peers and fans to earn selection to represent the North against the South at the Copper Box in London on Sunday.

The women’s All-Star game takes place on the same day as the men’s in a re-imagined event by the league’s backers 777 Partners who have set about ‘Americanising’ the British game since ploughing a seven-figure sum into the league two-and-bit-years ago.

For the many North American players who ply their trade in the British Basketball League - Sheffield Sharks’ Jalon Pipkins among them - it is a real honour to be selected.

For British-born players who have a quicker path into international honours, selection for the All-Star game is a nice pat on the back for their accomplishments this season.

As the straight-talking Gayle - who has helped Hatters to fourth-place in the league with a career-best 17.5 points per game from the point guard position - says: “It’s a little bit different at the moment with the league not having the exposure we would hope, so I feel like with it being the first year it’s more of a tester year.

“I think it’s going to be fun playing with the best players.

“Personally I don’t feel like it’s a massive event but that’s because that’s the type of person I am, whether I’m playing for Hatters or GB at EuroBasket, a game is a game to me.”

What’s more important for Gayle is the opportunity it gives her to talk about her greatest passion in basketball - developing the next generation of female players.

For as well as playing for hometown club Sheffield Hatters as she has for much of her life, and the Great Britain women’s squad, the 26-year-old guard also coaches the club’s Under-16s team.

That puts her in a unique position of influencing the game at senior and junior level.

And what she sees right now is a sport that is growing quickly through greater participation numbers and more money coming into the game, but one that requires a more collaborative effort.

“I’ve got my issues,” she tells The Yorkshire Post when asked about the health of the junior pathways.

“I’ve got kids who have been picked for national teams, but they’ve put in a national team tournament on the same day as we’ve got games.

“You don’t have a national team without the clubs, so do not book tournaments in when the clubs have games.

“It puts my kids in a tough situation - do they pick their team and risk not getting picked by the international set-up again?

“It’s not fair for the kids and it’s a welfare issue: putting kids in that situation is not right.

“There needs to be more communication. Last year I had kids coming coming home upset.

“Kids aren’t getting seen because we don’t stream games at junior level, so how are coaches supposed to see these kids?

“You can’t just pick the same team as last year because kids improve at different rates.

“That’s where I think there needs to be a lot more cohesion and communication between the governing body and us as clubs because it shouldn’t have a negative effect on the clubs if their kids are playing at a national level.”

The increased money going into the league at the top end - primarily at London Lions and Caledonia Gladiators - is having a positive knock-on effect throughout the league.

Gayle has been one of those to benefit as one of a handful of players given a professional contract by the Hatters this year, the team her grandmother Betty Codona started 63 years ago.

The Hatters have also strengthened their academy, and Gayle feels the next step is for all 11 clubs in the Women’s British Basketball League to follow suit.

“With the academy it’s easier for us to produce a pathway right the way through, and now that we are able to have professional players, and more of them, it is going to encourage our girls to stay with us and not go to America to play college basketball like I felt I had to,” says Gayle, for whom a couple of her Under-16s have figured in matchday squads for the senior Hatters this year.

“So hopefully in a few years we will see a few more going down that route. All WBBL clubs should be linked to an academy. That gives kids a pathway.

“Academies are there to push kids to aspire to the top level, and that should be the goal.

“I asked my kids where do they want to get to and a few of them said ‘play for Hatters in the WBBL. That’s something they can now work towards.”