ceejayemm

Dec 10 2008, 07:50 PM

I wasn't at the London Met v LSBU match but can offer a number of general observations in defence of London Met. Firstly, I have to agree that for what is a good standard of basketball, BUCS head office management of their basketball leaves a lot to be desired. I believe that all University home teams are responsible for appointing officials.

Regarding the match itself, this was always going to be a difficult game to officiate and I'm trying to get the names of the officials. There is "previous" with these two teams going back to last season where LSBU indulged in some sharp practice to make sure a number of London Met players their coaches knew to be eligible to play were excluded on technical grounds. LSBU beat London Met by one point earlier in the season so Monday's match decided the "head to head" result. Basically, this match was effectively the decider as to which team will top the group so there was a lot riding on the result.

Onto the match itself very briefly. I was emailed by a friend who was at the match saying that the LSBU team seemed to be more interested in karate than basketball. This person is a London Met supporter so is obviously seeing it from a fan's perspective!

Regarding Sol Ayinla,who I know very well. Firstly, he's studying for a Masters degree at London Met so is fully entitled to suit up in BUCS if he chooses. Sol is an extremely passionate coach and this can get him into trouble. However, he's also an extremely effective coach and his track record with London Met Uni is superb; progressive promotions every year from EB4 to EB2 and currently top of EB2 heading for EB1 with a 7/1 record this season.
As for accusations of "childishness" and not concentrating on coaching his own team, a counter argument would be that Sol Ayinla presided over a 13pt win so must have done an effective job in this case, QED!

I'd be very interested to know who was coaching LSBU. Don't forget that their head coach has been banned by BUCS for the rest of the season. This has been discussed on another thread. I'm guessing that Andy Powesland has taken over. He and Sol are (or certainly used to be) very good friends. Was Steve Alexander present at the match?

As I said earlier, I wasn't at the match so can't comment directly on the performance of the refs (the main point that prompted this discussion). Hopefully, I've cleared up a few points raised and given a bit of history that provides a context to what happened at last Monday's match.

Finally, as "Ballerforlife" only joined Whatsbev today, I had a look at his/her profile. Interesting to see that a 15yr old went straight from work to watch this match and has been an avid supporter for 20yrs. DOB is registered as 1/1/93 (possibly a default setting?) You might want to change this!