BECCLES Bombers Basketball Club was established in September 2000, and was originally a small club with limited opportunities. However, over the past three years the club has seen both player and coach numbers increase, which has led to the club becoming more recognised across Suffolk.

BECCLES Bombers Basketball Club was established in September 2000, and was originally a small club with limited opportunities.

However, over the past three years the club has seen both player and coach numbers increase, which has led to the club becoming more recognised across Suffolk.

Now it has a senior men's team which competes in the Norfolk Men's League, and an U16 team which plays in the Suffolk U16 League.

The club has strong links with the community basketball coach who is based at Kirkley High School in Lowestoft, working for the School Sports Partnership, providing an excellent on-the-ground partnership.

They also have links with Ipswich Basketball Club for more elite players, who can then go on to compete in the Junior National League.

Matt Harber and Joel Keeble are two great examples.

However, the club also has a heavy involvement with grass-roots basketball, as one of the club coaches leads the Waveney district team at the Suffolk Youth Games.

The club felt that, due to the recent development of its programme, they were ready to become a recognised basketball club, and began the clubmark initiative in June last year.

With the aid of Kathryn James, Suffolk sports basketball development co-ordinator, Matthew Harber and Matthew Wakefield led the committee in the completion of the clubmark administration.

When the criteria for clubmark were identified, the club found they were already close to achieving the standard needed, and only required a small amount of work in bringing the evidence together.

The final element to the scheme was qualifying members of the club to be level two table officials.

This turned out to be the most time-consuming part of all the work, and is why the club only achieved the award last month.

England Basketball is unique as a governing body as it rewards clubs directly for achieving this standard, and therefore they will receive £500 for their efforts, a sizable amount for the club.

Kathryn James was really pleased for the outfit.

She said: “They are a well-organised, safe club with a coaching staff who have some excellent basketball knowledge.

“I know the club has worked hard to gather the evidence needed, but in particular congratulations goes to Matt Wakefield and Matt Harber.

“Now that they have everything up together it will really useful to use this clubmark folder as a working resource.”

For more information about the club go to www.becclesbombers.com