Forty years have rolled by since the beginning of the Solent Stars Story. The playing years have been chronicled in the book ‘A Sporting Rollercoaster – The History of Solent Stars basketball Club’. Occasionally, even after all this time editions of the book are being bought somewhere in the world on Amazon.
Since publishing the book I have received the occasional comment. Ron Whitehead wrote a few years ago to give the reason he contributed so little to one particular game by saying he had to get off his sick bed to come to the match and was generally below par on that occasion. His scoring capacity was acknowledged throughout the two spells he had with the club (1985/86, 1995/96). I replied by saying I would make sure the fact of his illness would be amended for the second edition! Ron has added the following information in February 2021:
"Yes, the weeks leading up to the Cup final against Kingston, I had kidney stones and lost a lot of strength, did not practice and should never have played. If you recall, Kingston was heavily loaded with talent so we decided to give it a try with me playing some minutes, think I played for a total of about 15 minutes or so, was all I could manage, one of the most ill times during my playing days.
We played Kingston later, like another month and really took it to them on our home court (NatWest cup game)."Over the years, I have met with some of the players for the club. Mark Saiers and Jimmy Guymon both live in the area and I see from time to time. Jimmy, who sadly lost his wife Beverly a few years ago, now attends matches played by the successful Solent Kestrels team that is coached by his son, Matthew.
One day whilst walking up
Others that I know of include the following:
Alan Cunningham –
I have seen him on occasion and he was on the sports staff at
Mick Byrne – we meet up from time to time. He may finally have stopped coaching, well into his 70s. The Covid outbreak may have hastened this decision. His son, and ex-Solent player, Alex, still coaches locally in school and clubs.
Trevor Donaldson
– he emigrated to
Khalid
T. J. Robinson – his wife wrote a few years ago requesting a copy of the book which she intended to present to him for a birthday present. Subsequently she sent a photo of him with the book.
Masai Ujiri
- to him has to be the acclaim of one of the most successful ex-Solent player
still connected with basketball. After
beginning his career at Toronto Raptors, he moved to Denver Nuggets for a spell
before returning to
Paul Mundy-Castle
– he became a headteacher in one of
Marc Steutal –
has launched a successful coaching career with Newcastle Eagles and
Karl Tatham –
sadly died last year. His obituary
contained many of his photos from his successful career at Solent (and
Ken Walton –
another player from the successful early years of the club, had continued to
coach in the
Dean Owen – he married a friend’s daughter and I regularly saw him and his son at a Christmas event. Sadly, his father Dave, who had been an outstanding servant to the club over the years, died several years ago.
Paul Philp – he lives locally and even became a local councillor for several years. He had a Graphic Design business. He also has most of the old photos of the club and its players that I lent him a few years back, but have yet to get back.
Jim Kelly – he was also working at
Steve Fitzsimmons – he retired from teaching at a local college to go and live in the West Country.
David Butterworth – he lives less than a quarter of a mile from me. He teaches locally but must spend most of his time avoiding me since I have only seen him once over several years.
Tom Wisman – the
club’s first and most successful coach.
He went on to coach in
Steve Chant – we
were in touch until a couple of years ago.
Steve taught at
Drew Sewell and Roy Lewis both worked locally in
Children’s Services. I met
Jason Colgan
worked at a local college, now a university, in
Mark Jackson also
coached local college basketball at
Steve Davison continued playing in local league basketball after his National League experience.
Joe Morant
emigrated to the east coast of the
Jon Rumsey – he still lives in the area and without him and his expertise with the computer neither the Solent Stars book nor the blog nor this article would reach anyone.
Jim Rumsey
