An update on the Sassco Basketball team.

Report by Alan Hoyle:

The team is doing fantastic. We lost our season opener, but have won our last 3 games, so we are doing pretty well right now.

Our last game was a 51 – 50 win against Sunderland University at Sunderland. We hadn’t played a game in 2 months and didn’t have a training session in 4 weeks due to the weather. We quickly fell behind 11 – 0 early in the first quarter but managed to end the quarter ahead 18 – 13. The second and third quarters were pretty close with the score getting tied 8 times.

The fourth quarter started with a run by Sunderland and our power forward being fouled out, whilst our centre was in foul trouble, it ended up with us being down by 9 points with 6 mins remaining.

We got ourselves back into the game on defence and drawing fouls which got us to the free throw line, with 28 seconds left we went ahead, 49 – 47. Sunderland called a time out and had the inbound. Sunderland used the shot clock and scored a 3 pointer with 5 seconds left in the game to go ahead 50 – 49.

We called a time out and drew up a play. We went out there and Darren May scored the game winner with 2.8 seconds left on a mid ranger fadeaway jumpshot over 3 defenders. Sunderland inbounded the ball but their last second shot attempt was blocked which give us the win and our 3 wins and 1 lose record, which puts us in fantastic shape to finish the season in a top 3 place.

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Second defeat in pre-season.

Bit of a disaster again. Blanks up front, with shots wayward and not a Jabulani in sight. Any other shots were soft and usually direct at the ‘keeper.

Pearson failed to show due to a car failing to start and Scott Smith wasn’t there, which shows his unreliability, despite saying that he wants to come back as a regular player.

This meant that Dave Gourlay had to cobble together his starting line-up, which picked itself. McConville and McDermont were in central defence, while the whinging Muers was in attack, alongside Callum Howe.

The first half was quite balanced, but New Derby – in their first game – broke clear and scored the opener. Prior to this, Muers had a glorious chance, when clean through, to put Sassco 1-0 ahead.

Second half saw more chances for Sassco, but none were really on target. The ones that did reach the target didn’t trouble the replacement goalkeeper. Sassco conceded again, but then Muers squeezed one in to make it 2-1.

An unexpected error from Dave Smith saw New Derby lead 3-1, and no more goals after that.

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Possibly the poorest Sassco season for a number of years, easily the most disappointing since we dropped out of the top division in 2005, without a single win to our name.

The pre-season was, as expected, quite busy, including trips a post season defeat to Redhouse FC by two goals to one in the AGUK Challenge Cup, a strong win on the Sandhill’s artificial turf against Thomas Wilson, before the team came unstuck on a Sunday morning with a surprise defeat to Leam Lane Rangers at Gateshead.This was followed with a tempestuous comeback win against Forest Hall, a massive victory over Rutherford Deaf and then a heavy defeats against West Auckland and Newcastle BT; both teams in higher levels than ourselves.

After ninety minutes of our opening game, it was obvious that the team had near-collapse. The 2-0 defeat against Cambridge was hard to bear, but the insolence of some key players, namely Stoker and Richardson, meant that I was forced to remove them from the squad. Both eventually returned, but the absence and the disarray saw a run of defeats.

We hadn’t won a single game against a decent team until we actually went to Portugal, where a memorable tour saw a win, a draw and a loss.

Back in the cold, the team suffered and Greenwell, who was appointed Coach, was ready to receive the axe, until a superb run saw the team unbeaten for several games. During this run, Greenwell suffered the “thumb” and was forced out of coaching the side, mainly due to lack of attention and interest. Michael Pearson was appointed in his stead, and kept the run going. However, as the player signing deadline approached, the team was hit with several injuries and hobbled over the finishing line with only five wins out of fourteen games in the new year.

A lot of soul searching during the summer months, but the advantage is that the team has an appointed coach for pre-season for the first time, who will bring his ideas in and look for reliable players to avoid some embarrassingly heavy defeats.

Leading scorer for the season was Mark Muers, who move from defence into attack, back into defence, then back into attack for the latter part of the season.

Overwhelming player nominated as the best Sassco player this season was goalkeeper, David Smith, who replaced Simpson (now outfield) and was a key figure in the long unbeaten run.

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A stunning win for Impact over the Champions.

Downhill Impact 1 Redhouse Fusion 0.
A truly astonishing win for Impact. The score was 0-0 and in the dying minutes, Impact broke clear and fired in the eventual winner. A fully depleted Impact team did their Manager, Pearson, proud. His goalkeeper, replacing the increasingly unreliable Logan, pulled off some extraordinary saves. A great performance and a memorable result.

WWC 5 Sassco.co.uk 0.
A very poor Sassco team; unchanged from last week, faced a stronger WWC side who rattled five goals past Simpson. The result, combined with Fusion’s loss, puts WWC well back into the race.

Sassco.co.uk 9 New Tavern Predators 2.
The new team started well, but struggled in keeping a man in defence and suffered a heavy defeat against a rampant Sassco team.

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Digga (in defence) and Minnie having blinders.

After losing John Oliver, Mark Sammut, Billy Harper and Jason Amour, it’s quite refreshing that the main point of conversation after the game was whether Dixon, playing in a right-back position, or Minnie with his four goals deserved the man-of-the-match award. Digga’s last appearance there was in the game against Sunderland North where he hauled himself off. This time, I explained the fact that from time to time, we are going to be short and players need to adapt. I clinched the argument when I said “it was him or me.”

Within moments of the opening, I knew we had another win on our hands. Time and time again we broke through their defence. Greenwell was partnered by Gourlay in the centre and both did exceptionally well. NUDFC were more organised than SAA, but we still coped. The highlight was the back line. Jeff and Stubba have played in their positions on a regular basis, but both Wardle and Dixon (on the right) had stunning games. All the back four cleared their lines and we were soon 2-0 up. Good work from Emos led to goals from Hembrough and also Middlemiss. Both the new forward players were combining well and it was good to see Hembrough playing for Sassco again as his pace was clearly causing problems for the opposition. Shockingly, we allowed them back in by silly defending (i.e. playing keepy uppy on the left hand side). They were soon back in it with two goals. But brilliantly we scored one straight from kick off. Middlemiss again.

The second half saw us struggling with fatigue. Most of the team had played in the morning as well as yesterday and we only had the one sub. It was 4-2 with Minnie scoring again and then they got one to make it tight with 4-3. Eventually a long clearance from Watson led to the fifth and final goal – you guessed it – from Minnie again. He scored four in total and had chances to get more. Both him and Hembrough combined well and the whole team did exceptional. Watson had to go off late in the game to be replaced by Emos. I came on and launched into a crunching tackle which did my confidence good after the Saturday disaster. Stapes and Emos did well on the wings, but Digga was a revelation as right back. Time to time he stormed forward, but at the opposite end, he always won the high ball and was comfortable.

A good game, in searing heat and on a brilliant pitch. Good luck to the NUDFC team in their cup final at Aldershot on the 7th. Hopefully they’ll become one black and white team to bring back a trophy. You know what the rest of them are like……

Sassco.co.uk 5 Middlemiss (4), Hembrough.
Sassco.co.uk: Watson (Sangha), Clark, Stubbs, Dixon, Gourlay, Emos, Stapes, Wardle, Greenwell, Middlemiss*, Hembrough,

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