For over 20 years, Southern Districts Spartans has been a home for basketball development in QLD, and has also been a pseudo-home for the National League men’s team, the Queensland Spinning Bullets.
However, due to funding cuts and a lack of support, the Spinning Bullets team has unfortunately had to opt-out of playing in any National level competitions for 2023 and for the foreseeable future.
Through the support of the Southern Districts Basketball Association board and greater Spartans community, our association was able to bring together a group of local up-and-coming Australian juniors and some seasoned veterans to create the first Southern Districts Wheelchair Basketball team.
We were able to enter as the only QLD team for the National Club Championships at Morayfield, in July, whilst also remaining financially stable. In doing so, we have given these young players the opportunityΒ to challenge current and former Paralympians, 3-4 years sooner than they previously would have been able to.
Our next target is to continue making our sport and venue accessible to those athletes, in the same way any of our NBL1 and QSL players can come to get extra work in, during the day. We hope to have our Darkside Family continue to support wheelchair basketball for the greater Brisbane community and bring success through a development of the next generation of both able-bodied and wheelchair athletes.