Force just miss out on play-offs in debut National League season
As the last buzzer sounded on Portsmouth Force’s inaugural season in the men’s National Basketball League (NBL), there was cause for celebration but also disappointment.
Having sealed a 101-93 victory over Swindon in front of a packed stand at the Ravelin Sports Centre, they knew their play-off fate was no longer in their hands.
In the end they would lose out by the finest of margins. Kent Crusaders in NBL Division 3 East had the exact same 13-5 win record as Portsmouth but had scored 11 more points over the season.
Another year in NBL Division 3 South West awaits the Force but what they have achieved this year goes beyond a place in the play-offs.
This is the first time the city has had a men’s team in the NBL for over a decade and a team of strangers came together to nearly finish with promotion.
Chairman Rob Milner summed up the complicated feeling when looking back on the season.
He said: ‘I’m overjoyed with the whole season, but I didn’t think we would be as competitive in our first season in div 3 as we were, so it’s a shock.
‘So, I’m now kind of disappointed because we could have made the play-offs and we could have been looking at Division 2 basketball next year.’
Milner set the club up so that his daughters could have somewhere to play, but it has grown exponentially.
They are now trying to establish a pathway for both the men and women to work their way through the age groups into senior basketball at a national level.
In doing so they have established a community and tapped into a passion that, on the surface, the city did not appear to have.
Attendances throughout the year.
Milner said: ‘We averaged 220 people a game, but I think next year we will pretty much be sold out every game, 350 to 400 people. At the last game of grew the season, we managed to get benches around the sides so eventually I want that sports hall to have that real enclosed feeling.’
That level of support was a welcome surprise to head coach Daniel Fatomide. He said: ‘It exceeded my expectations. The last game of the season we had 330 people turning up. This is a team that’s only been around eight months.’