Portsmouth Force: A team on the rise

As the last buzzer sounded on Portsmouth Force’s inaugural season in the men’s National Basketball League (NBL), there was cause for celebration but also disappointment as well.

Having sealed a 101-93 victory over Swindon in front of a packed stand at the Ravelin Sports Centre they knew their play-off fate was no longer in their hands.

In the end they would lose out by the finest of margins. Kent Crusaders in NBL Division 3 East had the exact same 13-5-win record as Portsmouth but they had scored 11 more points over the season.

Another year in NBL Division 3 South West awaits the Force but what they have achieved this year goes beyond a place in the play-offs.

This is the first time that the city has had a men’s team in the NBL for over a decade and a team of strangers came together to nearly finish with promotion.

Chairman Rob Milner, summed up the complicated feeling when looking back on the season:

“I’m overjoyed with the whole season, but I didn’t think we would be as competitive in our first season in division 3 as we were, so it's a shock. I’m now kind of disappointed because we could have made the playoffs and we could have been looking at division 2 basketball next year.”

Milner set the club up so that his daughters could have somewhere to play, but it has grown exponentially. They are now trying to establish a pathway for both the men and women to work their way through the age groups into senior basketball at a national level.

In doing so they have established a community and tapped into a passion that, on the surface, the city did not appear to have. The attendances grew throughout the year.

Milner said: “We averaged 220 people a game, but I think next year we will pretty much be sold out every game, 350 to 400 people. At the last game of the season, we managed to get benches around the sides so eventually I want that Sports Hall to have that real enclosed feeling.”

That level of support was a welcome surprise to the Head Coach Daniel Fatomide:

“It exceeded my expectations. For our last couple of games, it went up, I think it went 225, and then the next game was 275. The last game of the season we had 330 people turning up. This is a team that’s only been around eight months.”

That level of attendance is not common in Division 3 basketball, or 2 for that matter. This led to the players having a fight or flight moment when first coming out with hundreds of eyes on them.

Fatomide said: “I think one of our first games we had 200 people there; they were like wow. That was a shock. When they got used to the numbers, they enjoyed it because they realised, they had a crowd behind them.”

Forward, Zak Riabi, described it as a bit more than just a shock:

“I was kind of scared. Daniel came into the changing room and said it was a sell-out. Everyone looked at each other and was like, wait what?

“I was very nervous but by the time game starts it just clicked and I was ready. It was crazy seeing so many people behind you and cheering for you. It felt good.”

Simon Olanipekun was Portsmouth’s Most Valuable Player of the year and relished playing in front of the burgeoning crowds:

He said: “I enjoy entertaining the crowd so when there are more people to entertain, I feel like I have to do more, which makes me play better.”

He certainly entertained the crowds, a number of times over the season he took the game by the scruff of the neck to lead them to a win with his athleticism and skill.

One of the highlights of the year for Olanipekun was a trip away to Exeter at the end of November:

“We only went there with five guys, everyone ruled us out, our coach didn’t even believe we were going to win. But in the end, we battled it out and won by 3 points.

“That game was really important for us to win because had we lost that, then the playoff hopes would have been written off in November.”

That result showed the hard work and determination that the team had, and it was also the moment that stuck out most to Fatomide when he reflected on the season:

“Exeter at that point were top of the league and I don’t think that they had lost a game yet. So, we were going up against the best in the league and we were undermanned.

“Coming up with that win, that really helped us turn a corner and we realised we could actually be pretty good.”

For Milner, seeing his vision come to fruition at the first home game was the highlight of the season. After all the discussions and planning, he was able to watch it play out in front of him.

“The whole game had been on a piece of paper. We drew it up, this is where the grandstand is going to go this is where the DJ and Paul (Goodale) is going to do the commentating.

“From a chairman point of view, it all went relatively seamlessly. We knew we were onto something good and then every game just got slightly better from then on.”

This was the first season that Fatomide had coached a senior men’s NBL team. Having missed out on the playoffs by such a fine margin, there are some ‘what if’ moments he looks back on that could have seen his team make the post season.

He said: “The Cardiff City game away is one that hurts a little bit because we definitely had them on the ropes. It wasn’t until midway through the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth that it slipped away from us.

“It being my first year, there were some games where we were already up by 25. So, I thought, ok, let’s get some of the guys into the game that don’t usually play. That 25-point lead then maybe finished at 20.

“In hindsight, since we only missed out on point difference, we should have pushed that 25 to be a 30 or 35 which could have got us into the playoffs.”

The growing crowds and the success of the team on the court signifies the growing popularity of basketball in the city.

Riabi was born and raised in Portsmouth. He played for 3 years at Itchen College where he was briefly a teammate of Jeremy Sochan, the forward who was drafted by the San Antonio Spurs in 2022.

The Portsmouth local has noticed the change of culture in the city:

“I am seeing more kids bouncing basketballs along the streets than I have ever seen in my life.

“My older brother plays professionally so the sport has always been in my family. But the first games were quiet and then by the end of the season it was packed out.

“It’s really brought the Portsmouth family together. Parents of the kids in the youth teams were posting ‘Go Portsmouth’ for the division 3 team. Its really nice to see a family and community being made.”

Olanipekun moved to Portsmouth from London two years ago to study at university and even he has noticed a change in the short time he has been here.

He said: “The basketball culture in Portsmouth has grown exponentially since I came. When I first came, football was the overriding sport, everyone just cared about football.

“Now, a lot more people are getting into basketball. If I walk past a park, I am seeing kids playing basketball, whereas before it was only football.”

For Fatomide, the buy in from the community, particularly the young fans, brought him joy and helped the team establish an identity:

“The best part is at the end of games, when you have got all these little kids who either play for our junior teams or are just interested in basketball, coming up and high fiving the guys. The players realised this is a city-wide team not just a bunch of guys putting on a jersey playing basketball.”

Their second season is one the club is looking forward to, but it also brings new challenges. The team has a close relationship with The University of Portsmouth with a number of players recruited from there.

This means there is potentially a large turnover in players, with some moving on or going on to do different things. However, they are hoping the large crowds will attract players from the local area and other teams to help build a core group of players.

With new kits being developed and trials scheduled for the summer, the future is looking bright for the Force.

Fatomide said: “There's a lot of new and exciting things in the works to try and get us embedded more into the community and see how much we can grow this organisation.”