A newly completed seventh court has been a welcome inclusion at the Kilsyth Basketball Stadium as participation grows across all divisions, ages, genders and abilities.
The additional court, Kilsyth Basketball chief executive officer Will van Poppel said, has granted the association the ability to schedule more games and create more skill-teaching opportunities.
“What the extra court does is provide us with more games. So people get to play more often. It means less byes, which means people get to play more regularly rather than having to miss a week,” he said.
“It also helps with things like training for the development of players. So we have another court where we can train players and teach them the skills and how to play the game.
“We run a wheelchair competition every Thursday night. We’re the only Association in Victoria that runs a wheelchair competition.
“The additional capacity with court seven, we now run a wheelchair skills program. So for younger people who are in wheelchairs, who want to learn how to play.”
Paralympian Josh Allison, a former Cobra and Wheelchair Basketball World Champion, has also committed his time to this training program, passing on his skills to all who want to learn.
“We’re pretty happy about that. That’s one of the biggest bonuses to have that going; it just creates an opportunity for more people to play and more people to be involved.”
Bathrooms and change rooms also cater to wheelchair accessibility, making the centre more inclusive.
Despite this “extra resource” in court seven, Mr van Poppel said, like most basketball associations, Kilsyth is at capacity and could realistically do with another two courts in the future.
“We have over 12,000 members, which includes parents, junior players, senior players, coaches and team managers. So it includes a lot of people,” he said.
“The objective is to have no byes. That means everyone can play every week. But that’s not a reality. It will be one day, but not right now.”
Mr van Poppel said that at this stage, Kilsyth Basketball is what he would call “oversubscribed” and that as “population grows, participation grows”.
“Kids seem to be playing more sports, more sports activities, than they ever did before. They play multiple sports…but it’s definitely more popular,” he said.
The ratio of women to men is still skewed towards male participation, but Mr van Poppel said the vision is to change this so there’s a more even split.
“We have a focus on trying to grow the female side of basketball. We want more players, more coaches, more girls’ teams, more senior women’s teams. But it is definitely growing.”
As the largest basketball association in the east, with domestic competitions for juniors and seniors, the Cobra juniors, youth league and NBL1, there are a total of 1300 domestic teams and 46 Cobra teams.
Players come from “well within the region”, some travelling from Yarra Glen, Healesville and Yarra Junction, but the largest cohort of juniors comes from Croydon and Kilsyth.
The high levels of participation over decades, including socially, meant the association had to outsource playing locations, helping build the four-court stadium at Lilydale High School and becoming the community partner at Melba College.
The 650 games per week are scheduled between each of the three locations, a challenging task but one Mr van Poppel said “we’re really good at”.
Grateful for the investment and belief shown by local and state governments to build a seventh court, Mr van Poppel said he hopes, down the line, Kilsyth Basketball can continue to expand.
