Glasgow and basketball
Glasgow is a basketball city. That’s a lie, no it isn’t. Glasgow is a city where the main outdoor basketball courts, Victoria Park, close for six months of the year. Glasgow is a city in which fullcourt pick-up games are a luxury, such is the rare occurrence of finding ten people willing to play. Glaswegians find basketball a novelty, its players a curiosity.
But attend a Glasgow Rocks game, when the score is close in the fourth quarter and the crowd are on their feet, clapping and cheering and booing the opponent, and you can briefly believe that Glasgow really is a basketball city.
The Rocks are Scotland’s sole professional basketball team. They play in the 11 team British Basketball League (BBL). Founded as the Edinburgh Rocks in 1998, the team upped sticks to Glasgow in 2002, playing at the Braehead Arena before the Kelvin Hall became home court in 2008. The Rocks are overdue another move, this time to Glasgow’s east end and the National Indoor Sports Arena, a site which will also host some of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Thus, the Rocks may be in the midst of their final season west side. Which is a shame. Despite its faults, the Kelvin Hall is a prime location, near pubs, restaurants and the subway. A Rocks games easily integrates into a Friday night or Sunday afternoon of eating and drinking. The new location is less welcoming and both transport and amenities are rarer. No doubt the area will be made more tourist-friendly before the Commonwealth Games begin, but I suspect that the more casual Rocks fans will stop attending games after the move.
The Kelvin Hall is internationally recognised for its athletics facilities. But for local ballers, playing there is less than ideal. The court floors are full of dead spots. Players know that unless they dribble the ball hard, there’s a good chance it might not come back up again. The floors are often thick with dust, making playing all the more perilous. This changes the sport, making it more a hybrid of basketball and ice skating. Backdoor cuts become all the more potent, as you can drive for a layup while your poor defender is still sliding in the opposite direction.
Add to that rude staff, vending machines that rarely give change, toilets that stay out of order for a month and showers that only spray water for 15 seconds at a time. There are only two male changing rooms for a place with five sports halls, a gym, an athletics area, a running track and a climbing wall. Hiring a court at the Kelvin Hall doesn’t quite seem worth the £40 per hour cost.
The Rocks escape these conditions by supplying their own court and baskets. The Kelvin Hall boasts a 1200 seat capacity for Rocks games (though if you’re sad like me and count seats, you’ll realise the number is under 1100).
The Kelvin Hall offers a more intimate experience than the 4000 seat Braehead Arena did. Braehead is better suited to an NBA-style experience of sitting high in the rafters, appreciating the game from afar. But to enjoy a Rocks game is to be amongst it, close enough to see players complain to and about the refs, near enough to heckle an opponent and know that they can hear you. The Kelvin Hall is ideally suited to making spectating a personal experience.
The game I attended was against the ridiculously-named One Health Sharks Sheffield. Sponsorship is a big thing in the BBL, which was obvious when the Rocks were called the Scottish Phoenix Honda Record Rocks.
I arrived minutes before tip-off and crammed into my seat amongst a near sellout crowd. The Rocks often open games with the sounds of bagpipes and a Braveheart sound bite, which would feel more patriotic if most of the team weren’t American.
Veteran Rocks followers can’t relax, even when the team is winning. Glasgow are known for letting their opponents back into games with bouts of low energy play and stagnant offence. This often happens in the third quarter but can strike at any time. There was a spell a few years ago when Glasgow would start games badly, then expend so much energy trying to catch up that they had nothing left for the last minutes.
Players have come and gone during this period of consistent inconsistency. The one constant has been player-coach Sterling Davis. For some reason his coaching style seems to lend itself to periods of unfocused play. He has also been criticised for underusing players who are playing well offensively. In years past, former Rocks guard Rob Yanders would start games shooting well, then the offence would start running through other players. By the time the team needed scoring from Yanders, he’d be cold and out of rhythm. Davis may focus so much on a balanced offence that he denies players the chance to help the team by putting points on the board.
In tonight’s game, DeAundre ‘Spellcheck’ Cranston starts well, looking surprisingly mobile in the post and showing a soft touch on fadeaway shots. Despite looking unguardable early, Cranston stopped receiving the ball. By the time he started getting the ball in scoring position again, we’d reached the fourth quarter and his offence had packed up for the night.
The Rocks are missing Davis and guard EJ Harrison from the lineup, both out with injuries. Yet throughout the first half Glasgow are the better side. Their offence looks fluid and they defend well.
When the Rocks step to the bench, the team’s cheerleading squad, the Rockettes, step in. The amusing thing about the Rockettes is that the dance routines they perform during timeouts are much longer than they should be, and hold up the game. It’s funny to watch opposition players wait to inbound the ball while the Rockettes spin and kick in the middle of the court. After all their years of performing, it’s amazing that this has never been corrected. The Rockettes choreographer must be a powerful person.
At halftime there’s a free throw competition. It’s obviously for kids, but a few adults don’t seem to recognise this and join in. There’s an awkward moment when a man makes his shot and moves onto the next round, and the crowd realise that an adult could be taking the prize out of a child’s hands. Thankfully, he misses the second attempt and we have an all-youngster final.
The final round used to consist of the two remaining contenders having to dribble to halfcourt, put on huge Rocks uniforms, then dribble the remainder of the court and shoot, first basket winning the grand prize (a signed jersey or a ball). But a change has been made, and five finalists simply drive full court and try and score. This is less interesting than the old version and I wonder about the reason for the alteration. Did a kid fall over because of the enormous shorts and get injured? Or are these kids just too good at shooting and kept making free throws, so the numbers couldn’t be cut down?
The second half begins and the Rocks are cold. The crowd get nervous, just like old times, and the Sharks battle back The final quarter begins and the mood in the Kelvin Hall is tense. Luckily, Jonny Bunyan comes to the rescue.
Jonny ‘Red Onion’ Bunyan is set to become a fan favourite. 19 years old, less than six feet tall, white, ginger, he looks like he should be in the stands not on the court. But this isn’t just some ‘root for the little guy’ thing, Bunyan can play. And in this game he’s got a challenge on his hands. He’s matched up against star point guard and British national team veteran Nate Reinking. Basketball is a young man’s game, yes, but surely being matched up against someone literally twice your age, with all that experience, would be intimidating? Bunyan shows no signs of fear, and is instrumental in a fourth quarter burst that seals the game. He scores nine points in a two minute stretch, chasing down loose balls and going at Reinking. The Sharks never recover and the Rocks win by eight.
A solid win for Glasgow. They played short-handed, survived Reinking’s sharp-shooting and their own moments of low energy and still emerged victorious. The crowd starts to pour out, some fans hustle to the baseline to get player’s signatures.
My time in this secret, basketball-loving Glasgow is over. I walk out into the dark, back to the real world
