Season 1985-1986 – Cambridge University Basketball Club

Set backs for the Club – Full Blues status denied and a tough loss at Varsity

(text sent by Kevin Nicholls, added by Michael Hofstetter in January 2022)

The Cambridge University Basketball Blues in the season 1985/86 with Higginbotham wearing a Blues Blazer thanks to his award the season before, photo sent by Adrian Fraser.

The following short report by Kevin Nicholls also appears in the 1984/85 season, and is reposted here for clarity. We thank Kevin for sharing his valuable memories with us.

An appeal to the (Rugby, Cricket and Football-dominated!) Blues Committee in 1986 for Basketball to be recognised as a Full Blue sport was unsuccessful, though the sport was elevated to “Discretionary Full Blue” status for any player selected to the British Universities Sports representative team. We certainly had at least one player from the 1985/86 team and a couple from 1986/87 – Tom Terrell (USA) and Matthew Ryder (UK) if recollection serves.

If anyone has team photos and names from the 84/85 or ’85/’86 teams, I’m sure I could put a few more deeds to faces…

In the 1985/86 Season we lost to Oxford at Iffley Road, not I think by a huge margin, and reversed that result in ’86/’87 with a dominant 96:67 win.