Bethan Fagan

In honour of International Women’s Day 2022, Caroline Matthews MBE reflects on the changes within women’s wheelchair basketball. Caroline has no shortage of experience, having dedicated a decade of her life to representing Great Britain in which she earned an impressive 125 caps and attended two Paralympic Games (Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008).

Outside of her duties on the court wearing the GB vest, Caroline has given a huge amount of her time and effort over the years into developing the women’s game within Wales and on the international stage. Caroline changed the landscape of the sport within Wales and co-founded Cardiff Celts (now Archers), and has held several coaching roles in both national and international capacities.

Recently you were part of the commentary team for a BWB Women’s Premier League match – how was that experience for you?

I loved it! You kind of get used to certain levels of nerves on a daily basis – work nerves, player nerves, coaching nerves…and I re-discovered a whole new type of nerves – commentator nerves! But I love chatting through and analysing basketball games, and it was a real privilege to be able to do this in my home town of Cardiff.

The BWB Women’s Premier League is a gamechanger for both the women’s game at home and internationally. Do you have a sense of pride in your personal involvement towards the growth of the women’s game?

I played wheelchair basketball for Great Britain for ten years (2001-2011). I worked full time as a lawyer throughout my time as an international basketballer, so it was like having two full time jobs. It was hard and we all sacrificed a lot. When I started to play wheelchair basketball there wasn’t a team in Wales – my first team was in Bristol and I soon moved to a national league team based in London. The MILES that I put on my cars were staggering!

But I just love this game (always have and always will!) it was all a million percent worth it. It gave (and continues to give) me so much, so many opportunities I would never have had if I hadn’t taken that plunge and gone to my first wheelchair basketball session – and I’m always looking for ways to give back to the sport that has given me so much.

The WPL is an enormous step forward for wheelchair basketball and, in particular, women’s wheelchair basketball, in the UK and I am thrilled to see one of the teams based in Cardiff. Twenty years ago there was no wheelchair basketball in Cardiff – and now we have one of the four WPL teams in the UK… imagine what will come next! I am very excited to see the growth of the WPL.

How has the sport changed since you first started playing, focusing on the women’s game in particular?

Wheelchair basketball has changed enormously since I began. When I started to play there wasn’t a separate Women’s League – we all played as part of the (predominantly male) National League teams – using a size 7 ball and often having to play different roles to, in some cases, work around the men in the team. The first Women’s League in the UK started in 2005 – and I remember holding a size 6 ball for the first time! The league gave the women’s wheelchair basketball players around the UK the opportunity to play only against other women (prior to that, this was available at international level). In that league (which is still thriving today), women played a full role on court – and were never just on the court “for points reasons”. It was great fun – and we all learned a lot. After a few years, Women’s League had enough teams to run in two divisions – and now we have the WPL! I’m very excited to see how WPL develops.

Funding is a huge part of the changes to the Women’s League that has come through. When I started playing, there was simply no funding. The GB team trained one weekend a month and we covered our own expenses…but we all had such passion for the game and it is great to see where that has led the sport today.

Compared to where the sport was when we started, the teams in the WPL today enable more athletes to better structure their lives around training, which will inevitably increase the standard of women’s wheelchair basketball in the UK.

I really can’t wait to see where the WPL league will go. Being able to build these teams around Universities offers athletes (from the UK and abroad) the opportunity to go to university, study (for your future) and train with the best support and coaches available at that location.

The WPL is such an incredible opportunity – I only wish I was twenty years younger!

Do you think the overall perception and awareness of the sport has changed since you started?

I think disability sport has always had a positive effect on people’s perceptions. When my knees became so severely degraded with arthritis that I could no longer play the running game of basketball – at the time, I didn’t know anything about disability sport generally or wheelchair basketball. I wasn’t aware that it existed and when it was suggested to me, as I wasn’t a full time wheelchair user, I didn’t think I would be able to play.

Eventually, I got up the strength to go to my first wheelchair basketball session and I was soon racing around the court in a chair – grinning from ear to ear and loving every minute of it. I was instantly hooked!

I think that there is now greater media coverage of disability sport – which can only serve to raise awareness of the opportunities available to people with any level of disability. From my perspective, it can only help the whole of society for everyone to realise what an individual CAN do…instead of focusing on limitations.

What advice would you offer to the future stars beginning their journey in the sport?

Give it a go! That’s all there is to it.

For anyone sitting on their sofa thinking, I’d like to have a go at wheelchair basketball (or any sporting activity) – you’ve got nothing to lose – so give it a go!

When I went to my first wheelchair basketball session in Bristol I had no idea where my basketball journey would take me (and continue to take me). I’ve never looked back – it was one of the best decisions of my life!

Photo credit: Carl Robertson

To commemorate and celebrate International Women’s Day 2022, we spoke to Cardiff Met Archers Head Coach Rosie Williams. Rosie shares her own personal journey into coaching, as well as discussing how the programme at Archers is about more than just the scoreboard.

Archers compete in the BWB Women’s Premier League, the first of its kind in women’s wheelchair basketball, and are certainly making an impact in the inaugural season. Rosie shares head coach duties with Tom Guntrip, and have proved a successful partnership in the development of one of four foundation teams within the league.

Rosie’s role makes her the first female coach in the Women’s Premier League, etching her name into the legacy of the league and paving the way for the future generations of women in coaching as a role model.

From a young age, Rosie was heavily interested in sports from the word go and got involved in just about everything she could. When Rosie was introduced to wheelchair basketball, she was immediately hooked.

“I fell in love with it because it was a sport you weren’t good at straight away. If you’re sporty in school you’d kind of be at the top of the class in PE, and for the first time I was bottom of the group. It was a really exciting prospect that I was put in a situation where I could really learn about something. That was my background in participating and then I went on to coaching pretty quickly because I was so obsessed with learning about the game. I’d just fallen in love with it. It was the first time in my life I could be a nerd about something and truly geek out about it!”

“At school I had to get some volunteering hours and I started volunteering at the development sessions, and became the leader and started leading that group.”

The transition from participating, to volunteering, to coaching was a natural progression for Rosie as her skills developed. From leading those initial development sessions to now coaching a High Performance team in the highest level of domestic competition in women’s wheelchair basketball, Rosie’s journey into her current role at Archers has been built on a foundation of dedication and sacrifices.

“When I played for my local football team aged eight, I would bring in session plans for my coach and I would like this is how you should do your game plan and I would write game plans out… so I have always been obsessed with the coaching side of sport, but I didn’t realise what it was or what I was doing because I was too young.”

“At the time, my club didn’t have a Women’s League team or a Junior League team. I’d go away and play for any team that would have me. As a 15 year old I was travelling the country, going to Nottingham where the women’s league was based. The GB Women’s head coach at the time had heard about what I was doing and had heard that I was also interested in being a coach. So he said that if I ever needed any support or help he’d be more than willing to help me because he’d seen the graft I was putting in as a kid and I took him up on it.”

“Between the ages of 16 to 18, I started travelling to Worcester, again, independently, sometimes there and back in a day on the train for ten hours for a single session so I could learn, observe and be a part of the programme. I was learning from Haj at the time as well, shadowing some of his sessions.”

“In my first year at university I became the assistant coach for Division 1 Coyotes Team which was the GB women’s team that played in the National League at the time. Initially I had played in one game and they said that I should assist in coaching. They would rotate me with the head coach and I’d assist them. I’d also started taking the lead on some performance analysis as we had nothing at the time.

“At the end of my first year they invited me to sit on the bench at Continental Clash with the seniors and I had started to be team manager for the under-25s group, so I was able to be around more performance groups. After that, I coached at Coventry, I coached for Wales, and in 2019 I was assistant coach for the Invictus Games. Now I also work with Wales Women, so lots of different and interesting groups.”

With International Women’s Day 2022 in view, Rosie reflected on the people who have empowered her to achieve her goals or have provided a source of inspiration in her sports coaching journey.

“When I was playing in the Women’s League, I had a match against London Titans and their coach Ann Wild, and immediately I just loved what she she did. The players felt so cared for and understood, even if they were sat on the bench and instantly I knew I just wanted to play for her because I wanted to learn. I wanted to be amongst it. I wanted to see what she was doing and why people were so captivated by what she was doing. It was an amazing year learning from her. And still, I stay in contact with her because anyone who has had an interaction with her just wants to have another one, and I think that that’s an amazing quality. I don’t particularly remember what she did, but I do remember how she made me feel – she made me feel seen and cared for, and that I could fulfill my potential.”

“I played for Wales U19 so played against Scotland quite a lot, and seeing Tina Gordon from Scotland on the other side was again a moment where you saw a woman amongst a group of male coaches not be fearful of being tenacious, and being verbal and expressive. That then taught me again that I didn’t have to be in my box. I think that she was just someone else who stood out to me because she went against the grain of what I perceived being a woman in coaching was.”

“Alongside that, I would watch international sport and would see the likes of Steph Wheeler from the USA. Steph leads a successful program at Illinois where people again want to be. She’s so passionate. You looked down the bench and see all the USA players holding hands at 2016 Rio like they felt a part of something. As the leader of that group, she was the person they looked at to go wow, we’ve got something really special here. What is it that she’s done and why has it been so special? I think more recently they’ve pushed against the grain and demanded more female coaches amongst the team which again, was led from the front from her and I’ve always looked to her and seen her as being a leader.”

Alongside women in sport who have directly inspired her journey, Rosie also cited allyship from male coaches as being vital in her development: “I also want to give a special mention to Mike Hayes at North Wales, because that’s a male coach that has not only given a voice to female players and female coaches, but has put his ego aside to let me mentor him after being his player so many years – not all coaches would do that. He really encourages players’ input in the women’s game – he embodies all the values that we want to see from a male coach in the women’s game. He cares about making those young women leaders and giving them ownership of their development.”

Moving her attention back onto the Women’s Premier League, Rosie reflects on how it feels to be a founding member of the league.

“It’s a privilege and an honour that we’re able to give people an opportunity to thrive in a genuine and authentic person-centred programme where they’re able to express themselves, and naturally that has had a knock-on effect in their ability to play basketball and their ability to trust each other. We aim to encourage our players to go out of their comfort zone, whether it’s on or off the basketball court.”

“We have athletes that come a day early to camp so they can coach an Inspire a Generation session and they’ve never coached before joining us. They are doing that because part of their recruitment was us asking “What can we do for your personal and professional development?” We really care about ‘the other stuff’.”

“We’ve got another player who hadn’t ever been a table official, and at the weekend they table officiated a WBBL game. Basketball is a medium in which we can give them access to opportunities and give them an amazing life experiences. It just feels amazing that we can give people an opportunity to do these things in a place where they feel safe.”

The Archers WPL side features several players who made their first international appearances as GB Juniors, combined with players who are relatively new to the sport. Across the league, this mix of experience means that players and coaches involved in the WPL can benefit from playing with, or against, senior players with years of experience, including GB Women’s athletes.

“I think for the players there’s an opportunity to grow, learn, develop by playing against the [GB Women] but it also gives them a platform to show what they can do because it’s hard to break the mould, right? These girls have a chance to each week go out there and show them what they can do and show that age isn’t a barrier. For example, I’m the only female coach but also the youngest coach in the league, so I’m embodying what I am trying to make the players do. It’s putting me outside my comfort zone, it’s putting the players outside their comfort zone by giving them roles that they’re not normally used to due to lack of opportunity outside the WPL.”

“In this team they get the opportunity to be a leader – to be a passionate leader, a quiet leader – whatever leadership looks like to them, they get to be that. We give them a chance to define themselves as a basketball player so they don’t have come in and be the next anybody. They get to be the player they want to be. They’re not parts of a machine, they’re not being coached to be robots – they’re being coached to be decision makers that can really lead by example. Everybody can bring something and I think that’s what is really exciting about our group because they know that is what I genuinely believe in.”

“They have dedicated so much time to the programme – it’s our duty to give them the skills to deal with life beyond sport through the medium of basketball. I guess I’m so passionate about that because I’m a Performance Lifestyle practitioner too and that’s what’s so unique about our programme. We have two head coaches that have experience beyond coaching basketball, so therefore we naturally just encourage them to do that too.”

The passion the coaching duo at Archers have for the development of their athletes and volunteers is far-reaching, Rosie concludes: “The players get to write their next chapter. It’s not going to be the game results, it’s going to be about what that group can do together, for each other for the social change they are creating together. I think it’s such a powerful tool that they have everybody on a mission to succeed in a way that they want to succeed.”

Each of the four teams in the Women’s Premier League are based at High Performance Partnerships (HPP), which are centres of excellence for wheelchair basketball within the UK. Reflecting on what impact these HPPs are having, Rosie particularly notes the development opportunities with the HPPs:

“The impact that the HPPs are having joins a movement that we’re seeing in football, in rugby, where the movement isn’t about sport, it’s not about a specific sport, it’s about women in sport getting opportunities. I think that the HPP has given a platform to disabled women and it’s an additional part of the movement where there’s real opportunity for change.”

“At Cardiff Met Archers, we’re investing in every part of the game. We’re not just invested in the WPL – we are invested in our BUCS programme, in our community programme, into the ‘Inspire a Generation’ programme, into our National League teams. We’re invested in making this a hub for wheelchair basketball, no matter what level you are you will get an experience you will enjoy.”

“At our first camp we had rugby players coming to that session and helping deliver the S&C. We’ve started to build relations with other societies of the the university – we’re not just seen as an isolated wheelchair basketball group. We have a thriving community and system that is really enabling people to make friends and connections, and I think it’s just an amazing opportunity to study and play. That play can be recreational or it can be elite.”

“Over the next year, we are going to focus on what we can do for Cardiff as a community as well. Already, we’re having primary schools and disability professionals email us, and we’re also motivating our athletes to make an impact in their local communities outside of Cardiff.”

Returning the spotlight to Rosie, the motivated and dedicated coach outlined her personal aspirations for the future: “Initially and immediately with Cardiff Met Archers I want to develop a programme where athletes deem success as more than just the result on a basketball court – that’s my immediate goal. Beyond that, I’m keen to break the mould and become a coach in the GB system. I love what I’ve done as team manager. I love that I’ve got to the World Championships and European championships and beyond. I’ve got to learn so much but I’m really ready for the next level. Beyond women’s basketball, again on breaking the mould, I want to coach a men’s team because I think it’s really important to do so.”

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Find out more about the BWB Women’s Premier League: https://britishwheelchairbasketball.co.uk/womens-premier-league/

Find out more about Inspire a Generation: https://inspireageneration.com/

Find out more about the High Performance Partnerships: https://britishwheelchairbasketball.co.uk/high-performance-par/

Cardiff Met Archers had their first away fixture win of the season and Loughborough Lightning make a comeback from a 13-point deficit.

Worcester Wolves vs Cardiff Met Archers – 42:49

Cardiff Met Archers travelled to the University of Worcester Arena to face Worcester Wolves for an exhilarating match. Both teams were almost evenly matched on rebounds (Wolves 50, Archers 49), and it was Archers shooting accuracy (37% FG vs Wolves 26%) that earned them the win – their first away game win of the season.

The Archers managed to stay just ahead of Wolves throughout the majority of the match, at one point with an 11-point lead in Q3. The Wolves side were unrelenting, chipping away at the Archers lead with resolve – a series of shots from Wolves captain Sarah Hope took the home team from a 5-point deficit to a level tie with the visiting side late in the fourth quarter. Ultimately Archers reclaimed the lead, helped by Olivia Phillips scoring two 2pts in quick succession and the visiting side held out til the final buzzer.

Jade Atkin (Archers) was game leader on points with 23 points, followed by Hope (Wolves) with 19 points and Jessica Dowdeswell (Wolves) with 12 points. Jade Loughlin (Wolves) was game leader on assists with 7 assists, followed by Jade Atkin (Archers) with 6 assists and Anastasia Blease (Archers) with 5 assists.

Jade Atkin (Archers) was game leader on rebounds with 18 rebounds, followed by Hope (Wolves) with 14 rebounds and Kayla Bell (Wolves) with 9 rebounds. Jade Loughlin (Wolves) and Dowdeswell (Wolves) were joint on top performers for steals with 2 steals each.

East London Phoenix vs Loughborough Lightning – 60:71

Loughborough Lightning made a remarkable comeback in their game against home team East London Phoenix, recovering from a 13-point deficit to take a 17-point lead win.

Phoenix wowed their home crowd with defensive manoeuvres and shot accuracy in the first half and headed into half-time 34:29. After another strong start from Phoenix in Q3 with a 7-point lead, Lightning exited their time-out team talk with a rejuvenated determination and their offensive manoeuvres began to overwhelm the Phoenix defence. An energetic fourth quarter performance from Lightning earned them a hard-fought win.

Amy Conroy (Phoenix) was game leader on points with 30 points, followed closely by Robyn Love (Lightning) with 28 points and Lucy Robinson (Lightning) with 25 points. Alice McHaffie (Phoenix) had her best performance on points so far this season with 12 points.

Amy Conroy (Phoenix), Love (Lightning), and McHaffie (Phoenix) were tied as game leaders on rebounds with 11 each, followed by Bethany Wheeler (Phoenix) with 10 rebounds. Laurie Williams (Lightning) was game leader on assists with 13 assists. Love (Lightning) was top performer on steals with 4 steals, followed by Wheeler (Phoenix) with 3 steals.

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The next WPL fixture sees East London Phoenix travel to Cardiff Met Archers on 19^th March. Our next BBC Sport games are on the first weekend of April, with Loughborough Lightning hosting Cardiff Met Archers on 2^nd April and Worcester Wolves welcoming East London Phoenix on 3^rd March.

BWB WPL Fixtures and Results: https://britishwheelchairbasketball.co.uk/competition/womens-premier-league-2021-22/

BWB WPL Fanzone: https://britishwheelchairbasketball.co.uk/womens-premier-league/