The last 12 months have been extremely difficult for women’s sports. With the lockdowns and sports being stopped, income was halted for many women’s club’s that relied heavily on fan attendance and fundraising. The Sheffield Hatters are one of those clubs and Harry Harrison sat down with the club to discuss it.
The Sheffield Hatters are the most successful basketball team in the UK. Not just the most successful women’s team, the most successful team hands down. More than 60 trophies in their 60-year history stands well above the most successful men’s club, the Newcastle Eagles, who have 48 trophies since they were founded. The Hatters are the pinnacle of Women’s Basketball in the UK. They are the equivalent of Ferrari in Formula 1 or Manchester United in the Premier League.
However, despite their quality, success and hunger, this past season they announced they would not be taking part in the 2020-21 WBBL season. They couldn’t afford it. When lockdowns came around, fans couldn’t come to the games and the team couldn’t go out for their fundraisers, all of which meant they couldn’t fight in the WBBL for this season.
Sarah McQueen, a club Trustee, said: “It costs at least £60,000 to have a [WBBL] team. That’s even with Vanessa [Ellis] not being paid.
“We struggle anyway with finances. This last year was the first that we didn’t play at the top level.”
To cover the cost of a WBBL team, as well as all the other expenses like court hire, the turnover required by the Hatters has continued to rise. Sarah said the club has gone from needing £40,000 turnover a year to £100,000. With a potential investor pulling out due to the pandemic, and the team unable to hold their usual fundraisers, there was no way the team could afford to play in the WBBL.
Though this was more than Sheffield losing it’s WBBL side. The impact of not having that top-flight women’s side really hurt the Hatters in ways other than money.
Key figures, including Head Coach Vanessa Ellis and players, Helen Naylor and Naomi Campbell, all moved on during the pandemic due to the club’s uncertain future. Ellis went to Austria to coach their first division’s reigning champions. Naylor and Campbell went to play elsewhere, in Manchester and Nottingham respectively.
The Hatters have a deep youth programme that brings young girls into the sport and gives them great opportunities to play at a high level. Young Hatter alumni have gone on to make meaningful impacts in the WBBL and some have gone on to play in the US. Without the WBBL team, attracting those girls makes it much harder.
Miss McQueen said: “If you don’t have a WBBL team in Sheffield, you don’t have the players going into schools and then, the girls who are playing already, they don’t have that inspiration.
“There’s no team for them to look up to and think, I could do that too.”
With a roadmap back to play in place for the team, there are hopes that soon enough they’ll be back at the level they want to be at. They currently have online fitness sessions, every Thursday, led by Courtney Bennett, for the youth teams, and by the start of April, they hope to have all youth teams back playing outdoors.
It’s definitely been a tough year for the Hatters. However, they have a great team and there is still optimism that in the future, we will see the Hatters lift a WBBL trophy again.
