TOP stars from the world of basketball have been working with young people at the newly-opened Crown Woods College in Eltham, and encouraging them to take up the sport.

Professional coaches Ashley Thomas, Steve Morgan and Joel Moore have been running taster sessions during curriculum time, and also coaching after school in the newly-formed basketball club that meets on Thursday evenings.

They have been massively impressed by the college’s amazing new sports hall on the campus in Bexley Road. It’s called the 2012 Centre and Sport England was involved in its design.

Greenwich Council has brought facilities up to regional competition standard with seating for 450 spectators as part of its Olympic legacy funding, facilities will also be available to the wider community in the evenings, weekends and school holidays. After going to view it Ashley and Joel agreed they wanted to set up a basketball club based at the college and use its facilities.

Ashley, who lives in Greenwich and plays for the Met Police Trident team, told GT: “We had 50 youngsters aged 12-18 for the latest Thursday evening session, so there’s a very big interest in basketball here.“It shows that if you provide the right facilities the sport will flourish.

The sports hall gives them a place where they can develop both their skills and as people. We are also trying to engage the girls as well, so that they develop a love of the sport, and we are starting specialist training for them.”Joel, a former captain of the GB basketball team, said: “We see Crown Woods as the hub of basketball in Greenwich and we want to make this beautiful building a centre of excellence.“We have a lot of good athletes here from Years 7 to 11, and they are definitely the stars of the future.

Here, we can develop the children’s talents because they are already encouraged by the excellent facilities.“Coaches like us are good role models because they encourage children to stay at school and get their exams.

At this age you just want them to get their skills right and develop. We would also like to go into primary schools and develop some basic basketball skills there, so that when the children go to secondary school they will already have a link to basketball.”And Steve, a retired basketball professional, added: “The taster sessions are going really well and we are getting a very good turnout on Thursday evenings.”The students who went along to the taster sessions confirmed that they are already getting bitten by the basketball bug.

Dilan , 14 told GT: “I enjoyed training with my friends and the coaches were really nice to us. Even if we weren’t doing too well, they were pushing us to work harder and harder to achieve our goals.

It will really give our team the boost we need.”Julie Taylor, director of sport and community at the college, said: “We want to encourage all the young people to take part in a sport, and having professionals here like these basketball coaches is a very effective way of doing it.“We are now looking at organising some demonstration games with some high-level basketball teams at the 2012 Centre.

– by Dick Townsend-Smith