“Basketball in Guyana has no future without its own facility”

– YBG’s Bowman contends that completion of the Sports Hall would not ease facility challenges

The 2024 Season of Youth Basketball has been done and dusted at the National Gymnasium on Sunday 15th December with the successful hosting of the Tertiary Knockout and Titan Bowl tournaments. And Co-Director of Youth Basketball Guyana (YBG), Chris Bowman, has deemed the 2024 season a success.
These end-of-year tourneys have seen Kwakwani Secondary School girls and Queen’s College boys emerge as champions in the 13th Titan Bowl tourney, while Linden Technical Institute (LTI) has reigned supreme in the third edition of the Tertiary Knockout tournament.
Speaking exclusively with Guyana Times Sport, Chris Bowman has disclosed that the 2025 season of YBG would have strong focus on development, as usual, and with the support of sponsors, tournaments would constantly be held, but adjustments would have to be made to counter challenges that would be posed by the YBGs lack of a specific facility to cater exclusively to its agenda.

Bowman said, “Well, our calendar is always more or less the same: it’s high or heavy on development. We will start with the Fives Challenge Series in February, then we will have regionals in March, and then we will have a long season in terms of the National School Basketball Festival. So that is how it is always set up.
And then we’ll try to have our year-round developmental academy and our camp, and then, at the year’s end, we return to Titan Bowl and Tertiary (Knockout). So, really, it’s a full program in terms of our focus.”
Then he disclosed, “But we will have to see (how things work out), based on the availability of facilities and all the other challenges. One of the things that we can boast about — which is probably essential to us being here for so long — is the sponsors that we have had. And in this case, we have had networks coming on board for this tournament. We have had Francis Lu Boys Construction, it’s a new company on board. We also had John Fernandes on board for this year, and the National Sports Commission. So, we have had steady support from sponsors. So, we have the support of our sponsors. But in terms of facilities and those other areas, we will see how it goes.”
Asked whether completion of the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall would ease challenges faced by the YBG in terms of facilities, Bowman articulated his personal conviction that, without its own facility, basketball has no future in Guyana. And he bolstered his contention by pointing out that access to the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall has been given to all sports associations.
“Even with a completed Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, we will still have a challenge with facilities. So, a completed Cliff Anderson Sports Hall will not improve facilities necessarily, with all the sports that will be given access (to that facility),” he said.
“Basketball in Guyana has no future without its own facility,” he said. “Basketball in Guyana has no future without its own facility,” he reiterated. “So, we have to deal with that reality, and we try to not have it disrupt us or discourage us. But it’s a reality, so we will see how that works out,” he declared.
However, President of the Guyana Basketball Federation, Michael Singh, disclosed to this publication last November that there are plans to turn a field in the community of Eccles, East Bank Demerara into an exclusive basketball facility.(Omar McKenzie)