Basketball club in Worthing celebrating National Lottery windfall

The grant will allow the club to purchase PPE, extra match balls and cover the cost of increased hall hire costs.

The club are thrilled to have been awarded the funding and said a big thank you to everyone who plays the National Lottery, adding: “We wouldn’t have received this funding without them.”

Sport England is a public body and invests up to £300m National Lottery and government money each year in projects and programmes that help people get active and play sport.

It wants everyone in England, regardless of age, background, or level of ability, to feel able to engage in sport and physical activity. A lot of its work is specifically focused on helping people who do no or very little physical activity and groups who are typically less active - like women, disabled people and people on lower incomes.

Sadly for all basketball clubs, nationally and locally 2020 has been totally disrupted by Covid. Hopefully 2021 will see some sort of normality returning as the year progresses.

D&D finished their 2019-20 season in March when all basketball was suspended. Since then players have managed to train from time to time when restrictions allowed them to – but in a way that was anything but normal, with players having to observe hygiene rules and train in bubbles.

As time went on government rulings meant senior teams were unable to train - and this is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future.

The hope is that from late January the Basketball Sussex League will start, and D&D again will be entering teams in every age group - with two teams at under-16.

D&D hoped to be back training from next Monday but with the increase in Covid rates and restrictions, they are adopting a wait and see approach.

A spokesman said: “We will see what the advice is as to whether training can start again and whether fixtures can go ahead.”