“But I feel nothing for their game where beauty goes unrecognised….”

It’s a cold, wet, typically British, autumn evening and I'm on my way coach my first BUCS fixture. I coach The University of Derby’s Women’s 1st team, a part of the Team Derby Ducks. By no means a powerhouse of the basketball world but a team made up of women who love to play, work hard on improving and being on a team with their friends. It’s not performance based but these girls deserve a fair chance to compete so they can put in to practice all their hard work.

We arrange to meet on campus at 4pm for a 4:15pm departure to make the short trip over to Leicester. The bus is late, to no ones surprise but mine. The team are obviously used to this regular occurrence. We finally board the minibus at 4:40pm and head out in traffic worried that we are going to be late for the start of the game. We arrive ten minutes before scheduled tip off with the home team already warming up. I hurry the team to get changed as I begin pre game notes and coaching points. As I walk into the sports hall I notice several things, but mainly a few key factors. The court has old markings on it, from several years ago, and there are also no table officials or referees in the building yet. The team rushes onto court expecting to be hurried to start the game but instead we are waiting for the referees to arrive. I understand that these are people with various responsibilities and jobs so I can empathise with this problem. However, one referee shows up and the warm up continues, after twenty five more minutes the second referee shows up and the game begins. As the game goes on its obvious that the two referees don’t actually care about the game and are just there for some extra cash. I have no problem with this but just because you don’t care about something doesn't mean that it doesn't mean the world to someone else. The quality of refereeing is something that, again, is very easy to critique.

I'm sure the last thing on their minds was that for some of the women on court, that is their sporting career. That is their highlight as once they leave university and take on full time work they won’t have the time or possibly even the chance to play competitive sport at any level. The countless hours they have put into their sport to make sure that they are the best they can be, the waking up before the sun rise to get into the gym to get shots up before the badminton nets go up, the relentless repetition of footwork drills to make sure they’re not travelling and the referee who dismisses all of this as they are tired from a day of work or favour the home team as they will be picking up their weekend beer money from this refereeing job all season long.

It wasn't until we were travelling home, at 11pm when most of the team have 9am lectures the following morning, that I wondered how many people’s beloved sports were being impacted by people who just didn't care enough?

I dread to think that this is a regular occurrence and that my team won’t get the fair chance they deserve at playing and competing in the sport they love to play. As the season goes on and the players work on improving it will be hard to maintain their enthusiasm and also pick up their confidence as they get treated like they did in that first game.

I'm hoping that those referees just had a bad day at work or were affected by some other factor in their lives and they just didn't have it in them to deal with the game. But, like most of my coaches and team mates have preached, well enough to be on court means you’re able to give it all your effort and focus.

The whole experience left the team feeling like no one cared but them. But that’s the important thing, they cared more than they thought. I will change what I can to improve their situation, practice sessions and hopefully be a part of a great season.