Scotland were crowned Champions of the inaugural Lord’s Taverners Wheelchair Basketball Celtic Cup on their home turf at The Peak Sports Centre in Stirling. The home team overcame Northern Ireland and Wales to win the title on the weekend of the 9th and 10th July.

The competition, which is uniquely targeted towards representative players under the age of 25 for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, is aimed to build on the existing junior development work within our Home Countries, and forms a pathway to potential representation within our Great Britain squads.

Scotland started the weekend with a convincing win against Wales 62 – 28, and although the scoreline looked one sided the match was played in very good spirit and very competitive. Wales, a relatively new team, then faced Northern Ireland, whose side includes GB women’s player Debee Steel and GB junior James McSorley. They both produced very even performances to lead their team to a 55 -23 win.

The final game between Scotland and Northern Ireland was to be the decider as to who would win the Celtic Cup for the first time. The final started at a ferocious tempo in a very even contest. However,  the home side proved too strong with some great shooting from Simon Ramsay scoring 23 points and assisted by Steven Ross, who then went on to be named Most Valuable Player of the tournament. Scotland won 63-32.

Tine Gordon who initiated the Celtic Cup is British Wheelchair Basketball’s Junior Development Officer and the organiser of the event. Tina said, “It was a great weekend. Congratulations to the winners Scotland but I thought all three countries played well and in the spirit of the competition.”

“I have to thank the Lord’s Taverners as without their backing we would never have been able to go ahead with the idea of a Celtic competition. Thanks also to all the other partners for their help and support in the organisation and running of the tournament. We look forward to next year’s Celtic Cup”

Jean Ratcliff, Disability Sports Advisor to The Lord’s Taverners was equally enthralled by the standard of the competition. “The Celtic Cup is part of our overall 5 year junior development programme we set up with British Wheelchair Basketball in 2007 and will have funded with grants totalling £573,000. This level of funding has made a significant impact on the junior game increasing participation at club level and competitions with many young players being potential paralympians. Tina Gordon, our Development Officer, has done tremendous work”. 

The Provost for Stirling, Fergus Wood, the Chairman of The Lord’s Taverners Scottish Region, Arthur Rowley and representatives from basketballscotland, Sport Scotland, Sport Glasgow 2014, Scottish Disability Sport and Active Stirling Sport, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Scottish Government Chief Medical Officer’s Directorate were among the guests who attended.   
 

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