The Crusaders History

History of the

Coventry Crusaders

2004/05 Season

This season was a bitter sweet experience for Coventry Crusaders in what would be Derrick Pope’s last season a the club, as they were selected for promotion back to EBL Division One after finishing fourth in Division Two, yet struggled to make an impact in the league with only 3 wins out of a possible 22.

Meanwhile the Crusaders’ Under 16 Cadet team, only in their 2^nd season, went unbeaten in their league campaign to win their Midland Central Conference league for the first time.

It is generosity combined with determination which allows youthful success, which is exactly what happened in July of 2004 when a Mr Alf Youell donated £5,000 to the Heart of England Community Foundation, which undoubtedly aided the club’s Crusader Foundation.

The season culminated with the Crusaders managing to tie down the infamous Harlem Globetrotters at the Coventry Sky Dome in May as part of their 2005 world tour.

Morale was high going into the new season, as it was announced in July that Coventry Crusaders had been promoted to Division One after a year’s absence along with Worcester Wolves and London Paws Capitals. Coventry’s promotion was due to Division One side Plymouth Raiders being selected for promotion to the British Basketball League.

Between the 2^nd and 13th August, Crusaders’ owner Dip Donaldson attracted 7 volunteers from the Washington city of Spokane in the United States to coach a total of 103 Coventry children for 2 week’s worth of 6 hour basketball sessions at Woodway Park School and the City College.

Mixed in with the 6 hour basketball sessions were other important topics such as the importance of respecting people, their use of language to people, and keeping the environment clean.

All of this was possible after a generous £5,000 donation by 90 year old former Phil Anthropologist Alf Youell to the Heart of England Community Foundation in July.

“Last season 70 per cent of our players were born in Coventry. Thanks to this donation we can help foster new talent” said Crusaders player and owner Dip Donaldson.

The Crusader Foundation was setting an example for other sporting institutions with their community interaction at a time when there were warnings of increasing child obesity figures, and Coventry North East MP Bob Ainsworth was toying with the idea of launching “Physically Smart” clubs within primary schools.

August also saw trials being held for prospective Crusaders cheerleaders, The club’s current crop were known as The Crew, who performed at over 200 nationwide events and boast 13 trophies from the 2004 National Championships in May.

During the lead up to the start of the season, Dip Donaldson was still trying to secure a major sponsor.

“I am working hard behind the scenes to secure a deal and feel confident, although I am always open to new leads that will benefit the club” he said during the first week of September.

Coventry let their intentions for the forthcoming season be known when they signed up last season’s most lethal three point shooter in Division Two, Worcester’s 6 ft 7 shooting guard Dave Jones.

He already had five honours to his name, having coveted the BBL Trophy and play offs with Leicester Riders, before moving onto Worcester Wolves to win the Promotions Cup in 2002, the Patrons Cup and last year’s Play Offs.

He converted 48.57% of his three point attempts last season, and showed how he helped Worcester to claim for promotion last season, with his top scoring debut tally of 27 in a warm up game with Kingston Wildcats at the Sports Centre.

Jones would go on to be Crusaders’ ever present top scorer for the season, contributing 425 points.

Following Jones through the Sport Centre doors was two of the club’s youth starlets. 6 ft 10 forward Adam Smith rejoined Crusaders after being given the opportunity as a 17 year old in 2001 to represent the England junior team, which he did a dozen times, along with playing basketball in Europe.

Youngster Andy Bennett, who was a part of last season’s title winning junior team, also returned to the senior fold after taking a year out for his A Level studies at Blue Coat School.

After the game with Wildcats, Coventry moved 6ft 9 centre Troy Selvey. Troy had plied his trade playing for university side Sacramento Hornets, before heading south to Mexico to represent Los Paisas in 2003/2004 where he averaged 19.4 points and 15.6 rebounds per game.

The 24 year old would also go on to be a community coach for the Crusader Foundation.

Mid way through September it also came to light that local basketball coach Roger Payne would be the new Under 18s Head Coach, whilst also assisting Derrick Pope and Marcus Garvey in coaching the Senior Team.

Fans were entertained at the Sports Centre with a double dose of basketball when the Wheelchair and Senior teams got their seasons under way after both being promoted. The wheelchair team started their Division Two campaign against West of Scotland with the addition of Division One player Keith Batty from RGK Panthers, whilst the senior team started with their National Trophy voyage at home to fellow promoted rivals Worcester Wolves, losing out 78-85.

Coventry were slow out of the traps, and a total of seven three pointers in the last quarter wasn’t enough to catch up with a 22 point deficit that was posed at the start of the 4^th, with Worcester holding on for victory.

Coventry completed a double header of tight back to back losses in the National Trophy, losing 76-70 at Solent Stars. Dave Jones, playing through a bout of food poisoning had an understandably off day, consistently missing his long range shots which made life slightly easier for Solent Stars.

Coventry exited the competition with one game to spare after a 3^rd loss away at Worcester in an 86-60 score line. Troy Selvey adapted comfortably to his first taste of English basketball, top scoring 14 through the basket.

It was a disappointing result considering the Crusaders started off superbly with all of the starters claiming points, and forced Wolves’ Head Coach Jimmy Smith to call time out with the game only 3 minutes and 22 seconds old.

Crusaders wiped the slate clean following their barren National Trophy campaign, and returned to the Sports Centre the following night to maintain a lead to record their first competitive home win of the season and knock Division Two outfit Mansfield Express out of the National Cup in the 2^nd Round in a 94-82 triumph.

Dip Donaldson was out and about in the community delivering speeches.

On Sunday 26^th September he gave a speech on health programme Fit for Life at St.Laurence’s Church in Foleshill where he was present to hand out football awards for a community five a side tournament that had taken place at the Church the previous day.

Dip was back at the church the following Tuesday 28^th for the event “An Evening with Dip Donaldson”, where he discussed why Jesus is important to him. This event contributed to theme of “journeys” which would be held at the church on Tuesday afternoons and evenings throughout October, which covered topics such as exploring faith in the 21^st century, a 5 week odyssey examining the Christian faith, and life changing experiences.

October began with an opening 57-80 home league loss to Manchester Magic, a team the Crusaders hadn’t met since February 2003.

Coventry Point Guard Matt Collins was a man on a mission, sinking seven 3 pointers throughout the match to try and encourage the team to fight back at Manchester.

Crusaders lost back to back league games for the first time this season, going down 84-68 at last year’s play off winners Reading Rockets. Ed Baynes Clarke made his return for the Crusaders and first league appearance though, coming on as a substitute to score two 3 pointers.

Crusaders went into their second double header of the season to claim their first league win of the season in a couple of tight results.

Crusaders won 64-57 at Solent Stars, but were soon to find out the feeling of being on the losing side of a tight score line when they were eliminated from the National Cup after a loss to Worcester Wolves for the third time this season, going down 67-72 at the Sports Centre.

It hadn’t been the best start to the season for Coventry, winning only two out of eight in all competitions.

Coventry would ride out the month of October with three consecutive home ties which sent them spiralling down the league.

Coventry lost against Kingston Wildcats, last season’s Division Two champions and current Division One bottom side London Capitals and bogey side Worcester Wolves for the fourth time.

This meant that after the first full month of the season, Coventry had only won 1 in 6 in the league, and 2 in 11 in all competitions.

On the 23^rd October The Crusaders featured in “favourite Coventry & Warwickshire top 50 great sporting moments” run by the Coventry Evening Telegraph.

The 1993/94 title and play off winning team pioneered the club into 28^th place in the top 50.

This showed that despite the club’s short presence in the city compared to other teams such as the Sky Blues and Coventry Rugby Club, the club became a recognised and incorporated part of the city.

The beginning of November saw attempts for an online innovation for the club, when it was announced on the 5^th that the club would launch a “Crus News” e-newsletter to be emailed out to fans to inform them of on and off court activity.

It also gave fans from over the globe the chance to ask generalised questions about the club.

Prior to Coventry upsetting the defending league champions in their own back yard, Coventry snapped up 28 year old Anguilla International guard Selwyn Reid after a trial. Reid had previous basketball experience playing in the Icelandic Division One.

The Crusaders caused one of the shocks of the season when they headed south to beat defending league champions Worthing Thunder 101-95 to record only their 2^nd league win in 7 games.

It was a team effort, with nine Crusaders were on the score sheet that night, and Matt Collins, Troy Selvey and Dave Jones all notching 20 + figures.

Debutant Reid made an instant impact as a substitute just before half time, tying the game up at 43-43 before two Selvey baskets and a Matt Smith 3 pointer which meant Coventry went in at the interval leading 45-50 after a 9 point deficit in the 1^st.

Coventry came through the 3^rd quarter leading, despite the lead changing hand 9 times in 10 minutes, The 4^th saw Crusaders make 16 out of 20 made from the free throw line, whist Matt Collins brought up Crusaders’ first century of the season which proved too much for Worthing to claw back with the amount of time left.

Crusaders lost their sixth league game by being unable to muster a repeat performance of the previous week, going down 99-71 at London United with a limited number of nine players to become another victim of their opponent’s 100% league record.

Crusaders weren’t dealt any favours when they were defeated 83-53 by league leaders Sheffield Arrows in their own back yard when they only had 9 out of a possible 12 spaces filled for the game, added with a reduced warm up due to a prolonged preceding game .

Crusaders’ fate was sealed half way through the 2^nd quarter when despite Derrick Pope and Dave Jones hitting home from long range to try and inspire their side, Garnet Gayle and Ryan Patton wrecked the Crusader basket 24 points to 11 in the 1^st, and the Arrows were able to capitalise on Crusaders’ mistakes to take a 46-24 half time lead which would only increase in the 2^nd half.

It was a mixed away month for Coventry, beating the league’s defending champions, yet losing adversely to the top two teams which left them flirting with relegation in 10^th position out of 12, and four points off the play offs.

December began with Coventry Losing to Worcester for the fifth and final time this season, with previous meetings in the National Trophy, National Cup and one previous league game concluded with a very close enigmatic encounter, which ended up 69-65.

Crusaders owner, coach and player Dip Donaldson returned from a three week trip to his native America to receive the Alumni of the year award from his former university, Northwest Nazarene University Nampa Idaho.

Donaldson travelled with his wife and six children to visit family, and spend five days in Idaho at the University as their guests, where Dip was recognised for his personal achievements as a basketball player, as well as his persistent participation in communities to guide young people through using basketball.

Upon his return, Donaldson was not only faced with the challenge of halting his team’s slide of three straight league losses, but to tackle the vandals in the local area. On 10^th December Dip appeared on the front page of the Telegraph to appeal for the local community of Wyken to stop motiveless tyre slashing.

Dip was one of around 250 victims in the space of a week.

“A lot of people have been inconvenienced” said Donaldson. “We need to utilise something and work together because something has to be done to minimise this vandalism”.

Coventry managed to round 2004 off on a high by beating Solent Stars for the 2^nd time this season in their final National Trophy pool game, 99-72.

Coventry began the year with the unwelcome news that point guard Matt Collins, who had been with the Crusaders since 2003/04 season for a second stint, had defected to local rivals Worcester Wolves.

Although their top scorer of 281 points at the time had left, the Crusaders marched on into their first game of 2005 at Essex Herts & Leopards, losing 82-72.

Cadets players Andy Brookes and Kane Hudson had to be drafted into the squad to make up the numbers for Crusaders, who had Alistair Spiers and player/coach Derrick Pope missing. A combination of light failures disrupting Coventry’s rhythm and a lack of squad depth hindered the team from maintaining an 11 point lead 3 minutes before half time.

Following the game Crusaders’ woes were made even more serious when Troy Selvey, the veteran centre who had notched 271 points for the Crusaders in three months, completed negotiations with Essex Herts & Leopards to jump ship.

Following the unprecedented departures of key scoring ammunition, coach Derrick Pope had a 2 week break until the next match against Solent Stars, and so organised a match with the British Army team for the inter services championship to practice new tactical moves, which would be needed more than ever with news that no new signings would be arriving before the next game.

The Crusaders received a morale boosting 19 point triumph to show not all was lost for the team.

Coming into the squad for the first competitive game without Selvey and Collins was the return of Wes Hall and Hardeep Khosla.

The Crusaders line up was certainly different against Solent Stars without Selvey and Collins, as the squad consisted of young and hungry players built around the 58 year experience of Derrick Pope and Dip Donaldson.

The team suffered a 89-98 loss, yet did well to fight back at a 22 point deficit going into the fourth quarter with Dave Jones throwing four of six 3 pointers and Donaldson, who has over 20 years of experience in English Basketball, rallying the young guns by scoring his season’s best of 26 at 45 years old.

Crusaders shone through adversity for their weekend double header to end a run of 7 straight league defeats and notch up what would be their third and final league victory of the season.

Crusaders defeated Kingston Wildcats 89-73 away with 2 points at massive stake against the fellow strugglers.

This game saw guard Sam Spare score his best personal tally for Coventry, a total of 21. A depleted amount of just 8 players had unified the squad overwhelmingly, with seven on the score sheet and 3 hitting the 20 points mark.

Crusaders returned to the Sports Centre the following night to face off against National Cup champs Reading Rockets. Crusaders defied any thoughts of a hangover from the night before, when they took a 9 point lead over Rockets with 7 minutes gone thanks to the 8 point surge of captain Derrick Pope.

However Reading came back almost immediately after a time out, and as the game went on Reading utilised their squad to punish Coventry and exploit their fatigue.

Selwyn Reid attempted to keep Coventry’s hopes alive in the second half with lively moves and alert rebounding which went a long way to earning himself a top score of 21. He, like Sam Spare, was able to assert their own style of play on the team from the personnel changes.

Spare, who is renowned for his tenacious rebounds, went on to score an impressive tally of 82 in times of adversity, showing his reliable and determined qualities in the team.

Crusaders moved to partially solve their squad shortage by beating the transfer deadline and adding a ninth squad member in the form of Leicester Warriors’ player Courtney Davies as their new point guard.

Davies, who was born in Antigua and moved to England in 2001, helped former club Leicester to Division Two last year, and has been a consistently high scorer for them this year.

The team began February with a 71-97 home loss to London United, who have only lost 2 games so far this season, which would send Crusaders into their next game with fellow strugglers London Capitals labelled as a must win.

Debutant Courtney Davies showed his sharp qualities in stealing the ball on occasions, and managed to bag 2 points toward the end of the game after showing versatile qualities surging forward.

This was the 13^th league loss of the season; with six games remaining to put their fourth win on the board and prevent a second relegation in two years.

Going into the game with fellow strugglers London Paws Capitals, the Crusaders sat perilously in 11^th place, 2 places from safety.

Coventry were unable to produce a 7 point win to lift them into the 9^th placed safety spot needed to avoid qualification for relegation.

They lost 84-77, with accurate shooter Scott Neely making his debut in this game in a strengthened Crusaders’ side compared to a few weeks ago, and the shooting guard tried to rally his colleagues with a 17 point haul.

Crusaders trailed by an average of 10 points throughout the match until the 4^th quarter when Coventry cut their lead down to 3 points with 30 seconds to go, but it had come too late.

Crusaders’ had five games against play off teams to save their season from the agony of relegation contenders to the ecstasy of being play off participants.

Unfortunately, Coventry went on to lose their remaining five games against Worthing Thunder, Manchester Magic where Scott Neely was cruelly sidelined for the remainder of the season, Sheffield Arrows, Teesside Mohawks and Essex Herts & Leopards by more than at least 10 points in every game.

12^th March 2005 saw five and a half year servant and current Head Coach play his final game for Coventry Crusaders and play the final game of his 22 year basketball career, top scoring a fitting and inspirational 28 points of his 349 season total in the 92-78 defeat at Tees Valley Mohawks.

Pope joined the club in July 1999, and not only played for the Crusaders, but was a pivotal role as a Development Officer representing the Crusader Foundation to hundreds of local children in the City.

Preceding the senior team’s game final league game with Essex, Derrick Pope would be able to watch some of the success of his orchestrated development by watching the unbeaten under 16 Cadet team beat Nott’s Nova 95-65 to progress to the Play Off semi finals.

The Coventry Crusaders’ record for the season was 3 wins from 22 games in the league, and 5 wins from 30 games in all competitions.

Following Pope’s departure, Dip Donaldson would occupy the position of Head Coach next season for the third time in the club’s history, with assistance from Marcus Garvey and Scott Neely for the next season.

One of their first summer tasks was to host a team of USA based players in the aim of persuading American based players to play in England, with coaches from all over the country invited at a time when teams would be looking for signings for the 2005/06 season.

At the start of April the Crusader Foundation was chosen by Asda as its charity for 2005 to link in with the company’s 2^nd year of “Big Healthy Eat Campaign”.

The alliance saw Foundation founder and chairman Dip Donaldson and Asda’s Lisa Schofield visiting Coventry primary schools to promote healthy eating.

Not only was the alliance good for the children in the community, but it was useful for the basketball club too, as its good will reputation was able to be spread to thousands of people visiting the Abbey Park store during the fun event to mark the alliance, and was also subject to coverage from Mercia FM’s Black Thunders.

On the 12^th May the Crusaders joined up with sports equipment company Sport serve Ltd to bring the carnival presence of the world’s most famous basketball team the Harlem Globetrotters to the Sky Dome in Coventry as part of their 2005 World Tour.

The Globetrotters team, which hailed from Chicago in 1926 and played over 20,000 exhibition games, at the time included slam dunk record holder Michael “Wild Thing” Wilson, who has leveraged himself up to 12 feet in the air to slam dunk, which is 2 feet higher than a rugby crossbar.

Overall it had been a disappointing season for the senior team, with new Head Coach Dip Donaldson looking to bring better form with a stronger squad to the table next term..