Sheffield Hatters to join Sheffield Sharks at Park Community Arena in move that secures their future

They may be the oldest club in women’s basketball, but the amateur outfit formed in 1961 have lived hand-to-mouth for much of their existence, relying on local sponsors to get them through each season.

That money dried up in the first summer of Covid, forcing them to withdraw from the Women’s British Basketball League (WBBL) for the 2021/22 season.

Then in March, their matriarch and women’s basketball pioneer Betty Codona OBE passed away at the age of 83.

It was news that shook the club and the whole British basketball community.

Which is why Codona - who founded the Hatters six decades earlier - will be as delighted as anyone that their future is about to be secured.

For the Hatters will join the Sheffield Sharks in operating from, training and playing at the Park Community Arena developed by Canon Medical Systems, a 2,500-seater arena that will form part of a medical diagnostic centre on the Olympic Legacy Park in Attercliffe, from the start of the 2023 season.

“This is a really big step for us,” says Vanessa Ellis, head coach of the Hatters and daughter of Codona, who worked with Sharks MD Sarah Backovic on the venture.

“It’s fantastic for the Hatters. Sharks approached us, they’ve been fantastic with us, they’ve been really supportive in lots of ways with helping us get sponsorship and supporting us in the background, to get ready for next season.

“Although this year is hard because we’re still running independently, and we’ve got to get the finance in, we know there’s that exciting future next season.

“Without it our future wouldn’t be secured. With it we can finally see some security at long last.

“It’s fantastic for the WBBL, the club, girls basketball and basketball in Sheffield. Hopefully it’s a platform to grow the sport from.”

With a bright future to look forward to, Hatters also have honours to challenge for in the first half of 2023.

In their second season back in the WBBL, they have beaten every team but one, the London Lions.

As with the men’s league, London Lions have had serious money pumped in from American investment company 777 Partners, who bought into the league 12 months ago with an ambition to grow British basketball’s premier competition for men and women. In both the men’s and women’s league it has momentarily skewed the playing field, certainly in the latter, where the Lions women’s team can now put professional players on the court.

“It’s tough because you know their resources, but we gave them a good game when we played them, I was proud of our team,” says Ellis.

“We don’t like to lose but we did our best, we gave them a competitive game. That’s all you can do.

“We want to aspire to have 12 players who are professional, to create that professional environment and opportunity for players to - for a few years at least - play full-time.

“It’s a great ambition and that’s what London Lions have done and it gives us a goal, a target.

“If every club in the league is trying to do that then it will raise the level of the league and the game.”

She adds: “In the meantime we’ll just keep playing hard, trying our best and getting those wins under our belt this season.

“What’s good about the Hatters is, while the league allows us to play five imports if we want, we choose to only have three because we want to play the British players and keep that philosophy that we’ve always had, of giving time to British players and developing our players.

“We see a lot of our players around the country who have gone off to university to carry on playing, so that’s always good for the club, to show we’re getting these girls playing at all levels.”

The Hatters, who currently play at All Saints Sports Centre in the city, remain very much a family club.

Ellis is the head coach, her daughter Georgia Gayle plays for the team as well as Great Britain, and Vanessa’s son, Quinn Ellis, is also a basketball player, having come up through the Sharks junior boys ranks.

Quinn Ellis, now 20, was playing for Sharks Under-14s team when he was just 11, and moved away to play professionally in Italy at the tender age of 16.

“It was a big move,” says Vanessa, “but like I said to him when the opportunity came, ‘Quinn you might as well go for it, there’s always a bedroom here to come back to if it’s that bad’.

“And that’s my philosophy: if an opportunity arises, take it, you can always come back. He ended up loving it…but it was a brave move at 16.”

Four years on Quinn Ellis is still playing in Italy and represented Great Britain for the first time last month - another part of the Sheffield basketball fraternity with an exciting 2023 to look forward to.