Cheshire’s Phoenix has risen but are Jets cleared for take-off again?
In an exclusive interview for UKAmericanSportsFans.com
He discussed at length his hopes to develop the sport from a grassroots level, including what has recently been announced in the local Cheshire community, what he learnt in a very short space of time when he took control of the former professional team in September, and his feelings at the removal of the Cheshire franchise by the BBL and the subsequent events that followed.
The current fan owned Cheshire Phoenix team, who are recognised now as the official professional BBL side in the Cheshire area, responded on Sunday night, before their defeat against Durham Wildcats, to the email contact Mr Cook had made over the past fortnight with fans who were signed up to Cheshire Jets mailing lists.
The message to supporters read as:
“We have become aware that a number of you have received a marketing e-mail relating to Jets Foundation 2012 and we have been asked to clarify the situation.
Despite reports in the press, based on the aforementioned e-mail, Haydn Cook appears to still have an interest in the name of the Cheshire and/or Chester Jets. It is beyond our control that he has made the decision to attempt a community programme using the Jets name and, in effect, in direct competition with the Cheshire Phoenix community ambitions, and obviously without the additional cost of fielding a pro team.
The fans voted and decided to move forward as Cheshire Phoenix, which is a Community Interest Company and (with the exception of the players) nobody gets a salary or benefits financially.
Anything done/publicised under the Jets banner/logo IS NOT Cheshire Phoenix!
If it does not say Phoenix, it’s not professional BBL basketball in Cheshire!”
Speaking with Haydn Cook, earlier in the week, UKAmericanSportsFans.com
“Somebody got in touch with me, after I had realised I put as much money in to the Jets as I could afford really, Harvard Global got in touch and I said I’d be happy to let them use the name for team basketball purposes, and I would concentrate more on the community sports development.
“It’s straight-forward, nobody asked me if the Jets name could be used, so it never arose as an issue. The people that stepped in seemed to what to make their own private arrangements, and that didn’t involve me at all, but that was their privilege. I had notified the BBL that I had financial problems, and within the hour, my franchise was taken away from me. From that moment, nobody had ever said it would be good for the sport to keep the Cheshire Jets name alive, or how I would feel about that or would it be possible, or anything like that.
“Obviously I would’ve remembered if I had been asked; it is a big decision to say yes or no. I might well have said yes, because it would keep the brand alive, and if I had wanted to do other things, there could have been an arrangement whereby they used the Jets name, and I did other things or whatever. Alternatively, I would have had the chance to say no, but that would have been a really negative thing to do, and isn’t in my nature; but it never arose because they seemed to want to go their own way.
“In retrospect, when things came to a head a couple of months ago, I wondered ‘could I have done something different?’ but at that moment in time, there was absolutely no-one willing to help, and it was only after I pulled the plug, that it seemed to make a bit of a difference, in terms of one or two people being more willing to be involved.
“It is funny with volunteer types, there seems to be more jockeying for position in the volunteer world than in a business-like environment. These things happen and I think I have to be big enough to say I wish my successors well, and I do, and if they can make it work, good luck to them, and equally I think they are finding it not quite as simple as they thought it was.
“The last thing I want is for someone else to fail again, because personally for me it was a very unhappy situation to be in.”
The difficulty Cheshire Phoenix now face after having saved the club and taken it on under a similar guise of fan ownership akin to that of the city’s football team, Chester FC, the roster has slightly reduced in size to six professionals plus local amateur players, but when Andrew Donaldson, a key figure who also contributes to the running of the club, spoke to the Chester Chronicle, he made clear that Phoenix will only work within their means.
UKAmericanSportsFans.com put this to Cook, and how he found his team at the helm of the professional team last year.
“There are obviously different ways in which you can run a BBL team,” believes Cook, “and if you are doing it on a shoestring, it is just plain difficult. I have a bit of a wry smile in the sense of trying to fund it myself and it being too expensive; Cheshire Phoenix are now finding it likewise. There are lots of costs in there and it is difficult to handle, but good luck to them.”
“I knew that there was a contribution to TV costs etc., but I think the BBL is what the BBL is. You don’t share revenue, so you have to make it up at your home games. If you have 16 games in 27 weeks, it is bound to be difficult. There was a wave of optimism from everyone but there wasn’t a crowd to match and without sponsorship, the financial situation and so on – it was hard, and I can’t see that changing into next year” Cook went on to say.
However the mantra he initially put forward at the start of his tenure at the club was that of the Olympic legacy. When GB failed to qualify from the group stage at London 2012, was that a harder thing for him to battle and promote?
“I’m not sure it had the direct effect locally, but the thought process is just that. You need something strong regionally, as well as nationally, to be able to increase its visibility.
“If you had a couple of guys with Olympic medals, it would generate media, so I think it is a shame. You talk to PE teachers, with a load of kids who want to play football, but in the middle of winter it can be cold and wet, and there’s also a lot of kids who like basketball with it being more to their liking, so it is all part of the mix. It’s great to see girls playing netball, but the more who we see play basketball, the better, and then adults all around the region playing, not having a game where it is called off because the pitch is freezing and unplayable.
“There is real room, but it is a challenge at each of the levels. If you hire a court, it is more expensive to do that than it is to play football, so affordability locally is an issue, then right up to national level, where you have cyclists everywhere, in the media, some of them just breath and it is a story! If you win things, you get a profile, but if you’re not even competing, you can’t even win.”
So where, in his eyes, do you begin to start?
“The trouble is it is easy to criticise and complain, but the problem starts with the Cheshire team, and what it needed, and needs in the next year or so, continuity with regular people turning up, a decent database to talk to fans and keep them on board and encourage them to participate.
“The financial situation has led people to go to desperate measures, when what should be happening is concentrating on the very basic things, how many families are coming for example. If there were quite a lot of kids turning up at the Northgate, plus away fans, plus volunteers, it somewhat disguise the actual number of families that are turning up to games.
“I went in 2002 for the first time with my then-teenage daughters, and if you were looking for family orientated activities in Chester, there wasn’t a lot to do, but the Jets was one of them, so we went along; it is just a shame that there weren’t more families who got engaged and were kept engaged. The important thing I think is to build it from the bottom and keep regular families turning up.
“The BBL needs a good number of decent teams, so I expect they cannot afford to shed any of their franchises, and what they need is more; I see now Edinburgh have expressed an interest. Professional basketball is a different type of thing from what we [Cheshire Jets] want to do, but if they [Phoenix] can make it successful then very good luck to them.
“If you look at boxing, pool, darts, and that if you get TV money, they thrive for a bit. But if they lose it, they struggle. That’s purely marketing, but there’s no easy answer. Football has such a grip on the psyche, and will always be number one, and how other sports can live in its shadow, it really is difficult.
“You see the diving programme [ITV’s Splash] at the moment, and with it being a relatively amateur sport, to get more professional divers into competition is hard, as most will probably be working outside to fund that. It is a tough nut to crack, and everyone is always doing the last ditch attempt to save things with the sport” Cook surmised.
In a perfect world, the basketball community in Britain would probably agree with the final points made, but the vast majority know that is possibly well beyond reach at this moment.
Instead, UKAmericanSportsFans.
“I’m working with various people, but the first thing we’ve gone public with is the family sports day on the 10th February at Chester Racecourse, followed by our half term holiday camp, and from that we are going to try and build up a range of sports, including basketball, in Chester and West Cheshire.
“A lot of what we do is grant related, we’ve had our first one through, but these things seem to take forever, we have spoken with lots of people and I’m reasonably confident over things.
“It’s terribly easy to do lots of talking and planning, but I’m more inclined to say ‘let’s get on and do some stuff’, the aim is to have a roll out of different things that we will announce in the next few weeks. We felt that the family sports day was an obvious event to have to dip our toe into the water and have families try a range of different sports. West Cheshire Primary Care Trust have been good enough to fund the event, so having got the approval of funding, the main thing was to get on and do it. The aim is to do a series of similar events, family orientated, and also for us to learn by doing. I learnt the other day of the cycling path along the canal into Chester, so if we can get families doing those activities, motivating each other, all the better.
“Claire Wilson, who runs Chester Academy, which is helping us run the family day event, has got a very good reputation, and has a interest in a variety of sports; we’re strong in the basketball side, but Claire also has expertise in other areas, so we add value to each other.”
The community side of things sounds promising, but of course, the grievances months ago lay with the use of the name for the professional team, so with Harvard Global in control of that, and also having the involvement of former Jets player-coach, James Hamilton, is there a possibility of seeing the Jets name back on a jersey sometime soon in the lower echelons of EBL Division Four?
“We’d be mad not to look at that prospect, but at the moment that is just in the pipeline and we’re not in a position to announce anything.
“I’d rather build things from the bottom, have a successive amateur team, locally, regionally, making sure it is financially viable, because I haven’t been able to find people who can put the money in regardless, so you have to have some relation to your gate money and what you spend on your players cutting your cloth appropriately. There are plenty of guys who would like to play good basketball across the catchment; but again it is too early to make a firm announcement of putting a team together.”
One point though that both Cook and the current Cheshire Phoenix side do agree on is who is who, and the feeling that the public will be able to recognise that fact, is paramount for both organisations.
“I hope there’s not too much problem differentiating. We own the Cheshire Jets brand, logo, kit and so on. We use that and we are quite clear about that, and we Cheshire Phoenix, the name and logo again, they are able to make it quite clear that they are the pro BBL team. It may be a bit confusing, and in an ideal world, things would have gone smoothly in the last five years and there wouldn’t have been any complications. We’re going to be straight down the line and do some proper community development, do it for its own sake and not subsidise a pro team, and really just get on quietly and do that.”
- Cheshire Phoenix, the professional BBL club, have asked that if any supporters have any further enquires about the current situation, to contact them through their website CheshirePhoenix.co.uk, or to speak with someone at the Supporters Table on game nights. All home fixtures can be found on their website or at BBL.org.uk
- Jets Foundation 2012 is the company set up by Cook, whilst Jets Foundation is affiliated with the BBL Foundation and is currently a part of the Proj3kt 3on3 scheme taking place; they two different organisations, managed by two different groups of individuals.
