Salisbury Suns

The Salisbury Suns are an amateur basketball team that compete in the Dorset Basketball Association. The Captain of the Suns is Peter Sneddon. Sneddon, 33, who lives in Totton, works as a personal trainer, and runs the Forest Fitness Boot Camp. He has been playing basketball since he was nine and played for South-West England Youth during his teenage years, and also spent seasons with Solent in the National League. Peter also shares the role of co-secretary with Matt Cooper, in which Sneddon oversees the clubs’ finances.

With working full time and having a young family, Sneddon still tries to get in as much training as possible.

“I try to make training more basketball orientated so I try and keep my body ready and in terms of shooting and practicing, it’s just relying on training for Salisbury.

"It’s not enough, I would love to be able to go indoors somewhere cheap. In the US, they have their YMCA gyms and LA fitness. If you have your membership, you can go and shoot around and have scrimmages with whoever’s there, and I would love something like that.

"In the UK those types of facilities don’t exist, you have to spend so much on court rental."

Sun’s Guard Jed McGrath talked about what preparations go into training before their game and the final.

“We film all our games, so we quite often look back at what we’ve done wrong, what we’ve done well. "We played these boys (The Titans) and we looked at how they played, look at the tactics at how we could win the game.”

Sneddon helped the Suns finish second in the league, despite facing adversity throughout the season having key players Will Caufield, John Powell and Shay Robinson out for periods, and a new coach coming in.

“We had a new coach come in. Our old coach Olu Taiwo suffered with breast cancer just as covid started, then covid hit him hard as well.

"As a result, he’s been struggling to come, not just to play. He’s in his 50’s but when he played, he played like a 40-year-old. He was a beast. So, he couldn’t come and play anymore.

“He coached a bit, but it was getting to a point where he couldn’t coach as well, various hospital appointments meant he took a back seat.

"He asked Jason (Bunting) who’s an RAF guy, and has done a bit of coaching for them, to take over coaching the team.

"I didn’t want to do it, if I coached it means I had to play less or would have to concentrate more and not worry about playing so much."

Finishing second in the league meant that the Suns qualified for the playoffs. After a narrow one-point win in the semi-final against the Bournemouth Oaks, the squad played the B4L Titans in the final at the Cornerstone Academy last Saturday.

In front of a crowd of around 40 people, after a tight first quarter, the Titans went on a 9-0 run to start the second quarter and looked to run away with it. Turnovers were proving costly for the Suns as they went into halftime down 11 points. However, a strong start to the third quarter thanks to Alex Tribe, the Wiltshire side started to make a comeback.

But then, the Titans knocked down consecutive 3’s to end the quarter, and despite a late push in the fourth, Salisbury would lose by eight.

Basketball isn’t a very popular sport in the UK and doesn’t receive the same amount of funding as other sports such as football or golf. Sneddon believes that the local councils could do a lot more to improve basketball in the local area.

 “On the council side, it’s not that they can do better, it’s that they aren’t doing anything. Whether is because it’s a team sport, they could give us the court for free.

"It would make life so much easier, then you could either pay the coaches and they’d stick around or put more effort in.

"What coach is going to spend three hours on a Friday writing up plays for the Saturday if they’re not getting played. If we could pay referees and pay them well.

"I think, including travel, the most expensive referee to come to Salisbury was £35-40, which seems nuts to me because as a personal trainer I charge £45 for an hour session, and the refs are there for 2-3 hours plus travel. That’s why refs are hard to come by."

"The Dorset Basketball League has done a stellar job, given all the limitations they have. It’s still self-funded by teams and everyone contributes to the league we pay a league fees, and there’s a few other clubs that help as well but comparing it to the Solent league which we left (SABA League).

"We left because it was disorganized. Stuff like needing qualified table officials. No one really cares, if there’s a mistake there’s a mistake.

"Usually, the refs spot it or someone competent watching can do it, things like that are the hardest thing, that and they needed us to have referees, and Dorset provide refs. Overall it’s really good.

Sun’s player Anthony Sweeney suggested what the DBA could do differently;

“Maybe find a nice venue for the finals, although I do like this venue, it is a home court. So potentially a really nice venue for the final, maybe some stands, get a proper crowd going, but in general I think they’ve done a good job organising the lead.

"I like the playoffs and I like the fact we get a good number of games. But I think getting a neutral venue with a nice court to play on.”

Sneddon praised the young players for their talent and their improvement, being an integral part of the squad throughout the season and in the final. McGrath, Tribe and Sweeney all play in the National League, like Sneddon did at their age. Developing younger talent could be important for the future improvement for British Basketball."