Wolves ‘d’lighted with launch
DROGHEDA Wolves Basketball Club is certainly now open for business after the club’s very successful launch at the d Hotel the Saturday before last.
The family fun day, kindly sponsored and hosted by the hotel, was a mixture of fun games and roll calling of some of the club’s successes to date and targets for the future.
Wolves chairman Jim Agnew welcomed the several hundred people who turned out for the event on the sun-soaked Boyneside and he was joined by Basketball Ireland president Theresa Walsh and her CEO Bernard O’Byrne who was fresh from some business at the Basketball World Cup conference in China.
Local councillors James Byrne and Stephen McKee came along to support the new venture and Cllr McKee was warmly applauded when he highlighted the Wolves’ all-inclusiveness policy and how people can make friends for life in a club such as this, as boys and girls become men and women in the great theatre that the sport of basketball provides.
There was an opportunity too for the new club to remember the notable successes of last season, including the selection of Kate Kelly and Wede Esajobor for their respective Under-16 national teams.
The Wolves Under-16 girls team, who won the All-Ireland Club Championship, were recognised, as were the players and coaches on the men’s senior team who finished unbeaten champions in the NEBB league whilst also going all the way to the National Cup Final at their first attempt.
Chairman Agnew also displayed an engraved plaque which it is hoped will adorn a clubhouse wall sometime in the future.
With almost 400 players, 18 teams and a junior academy, along with nearly 40 coaches, Wolves Basketball Club have all the tools in place to see through their five-year strategic plan which is geared to growing and promoting the game for all ages in the greater Drogheda area.