Club of the Year

Basingstoke & Deane has great strength in their sporting community with many clubs feared in competition around the country. Basingstoke Sports Council continue to work with the full sporting community and this year have the strongest affiliation ever from local clubs. Fourteen clubs were considered for 'Club of the Year' 2019 representing many more locally and also those who have sportsmen and women nominated in the individual categories. 

Recent winners of this prestigious award are - 2018 (Basingstoke Gymnastics Club), 2017 (Wessex Wyvern Modern Pentathlon Club), 2016 (Chineham Park Running Club), 2015 (Basingstoke Gymnastics Club), 2014 (Shin Gi Tai Marial Arts Academy), 2013 (Basingstoke Gymnastics Club) & 2012 (Basingstoke & Mid Hants Athletics Club)

Basingstoke Academy of Dancing

Basingstoke Academy have had another amazing year, overall winners of the Dance School of the Year 2019 and 4 finalists in the Dance World Cup in Portugal for Team England.  They also qualified 35 students for next year’s Finals in Italy – and also achieved exceptional exam results.  Charity work included various residential homes and community gatherings such as B-Love and World Party in the Park, performing as the entertainment at their Principals 50th Charity Ball that raised £3500 for Victoria’s Promise and The Big Cat Sanctuary.  Their Moving Experience Production also donated a further £250 to Victoria’s Promise and they performed at Tesco’s Dance Beats event, helping raise money for Cancer Research UK Diabetes UK and British Heart Foundation.

Basingstoke Gymnastic Club

2019 was a successful year succeeding at regional, national and international level, finishing the year with a World Team Champion. The year saw a new fundraising committee, a team of parent volunteers, who help with every aspect of bringing in extra funding to make BGC a better place. Their roles include funding applications, small internal and external fundraising and volunteering time towards events and marketing the club as a whole. The Club has great relationships; becoming a regular work experience venue for young students to experience a place of work, and although they are predominantly coaching, there are many areas of opportunity they can offer which make it a very attractive place to be a part of.

Basingstoke Hockey Club

BHC Ladies 1st XI made club history through promotion to National League. The Mens’ 1st XI won the Hampshire Trophy and there are players representing regional and national teams. The Club has successfully fundraised towards the second pitch, which is almost ready for the grand opening and in the background the committee works hard to make the club run smoothly and sustainably. The club has a wide range of ages competing and a great social programme to engage members throughout the year.

Basingstoke Kickboxing Organisation

BKO members are World, European and British champions in 2019. Members won gold, Silver and Bronze at The Irish, Flanders (Belgium), Dutch, Watford and Bristol open tournaments. They have six members on the WAKO GB Team and competed in the British, European and World championships in 2019. Each member made it to the podium and received a medal for their country.  Several BKO members have world Ranking; Rob Payne (1st) Paige Adcock (1st) Maggie Brown (6th) Charlotte Evans (6th) and George Peploe (10th). In 2019, BKO attended 30 tournaments and gained 298 top three placings. They significantly increased their member base and training sessions introducing new classes for all abilities and ages.

Basingstoke School of Martial Arts

The Basingstoke School of Martial Arts teaches Taekwondo and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The club enables people of multiple ages and sizes to become more confident, believe in themselves and reach their goals on and off the mats. Coached by Kevin Hall a British Champion, the school produces multiple English, British and European Brazilian Jiu Jitsu champions. The school is proud to be diverse and teach styles that will help students that want to compete, students that want to improve fitness and students that want to improve self-confidence to help with everyday life. In 2019, the Club also brought in world class coaches from around the world and training is available to anyone that would like to attend.

Basingstoke Wolverines – Cheerleading

Wolverines have been in their own dedicated premises for a year, achieving fantastic results in the sporting world. Their Senior Level 1 team won their division at the world’s biggest Cheerleading competition in Orlando 2019 competing against the best clubs in the world and they achieved Multiple 1st places at every competition attended. 2019 proved to be the most successful year yet, with National Champion titles achieved, best Choreography awards and best technical execution awards, which is a huge testament to the club, coaches and athletes.

Berg Youth FC

The club has expanded over the last 12 months and recruited new trained coaches to the teams. They secured a new home pitch at Cranbourne school, secured a donation of a container which houses all the equipment at the school and secured new sponsors. The new home pitch allowed them to host an extremely successful tournament in the summer for the U10’s. This allowed many teams to come and see Berg’s new home and participate in a well-organised fun day for the children. The setting up of the Tots team has meant many new players coming in and enjoying training and matches. The club is now thriving and has attracted a number of new players 

Basingstoke Bluefins Swimming

Bluefins taught over 500 children to swim and coached 240 swimmers on a competitive program during 2019. At the County Championship’s they won 4 Golds, 15 Silvers and 11 Bronze Individual medals and a Silver and Bronze in team events. Nine swimmers qualified for Regionals (claiming a Bronze medal) and approximately fifty swimmers qualified for the 2020 Counties in January.  Bluefins Competitive Swim program hosts about 240 swimmers across all ages – primarily from age 8 through to Masters swimmers at 80+, and they also have a Disability squad within the club, ‘Sharks’, who cater for swimmers with various disabilities. Water Polo is also a key focus, with children and adults playing matches across the south of England. 

Bluewave Korean Martial Arts

Bluewave has continued to prove it’s one of the best Taekwondo clubs in the South, providing growing opportunities for its members and coaches. Despite being a volunteer club, they successfully ran one of the biggest national Poomsae competitions of the year, hosted a Korean Grandmaster for a specialist session and supported all their members through grading’s and competition’s worldwide.

Hatch Warren Beggarwood Cycling Club

In less than 5 years the club has grown to over 170 members, with 25% being female, and over 80% over 40!  They are truly a diverse group of people, drawing riders from all over Basingstoke and afar.  Every month they run 30+ rides with over 100 people riding each month. They run rides that allow every one of every ability to ride and have successfully helped people who haven’t ridden a bike in 20 years get back in the saddle and eventually ride 100 miles. The club has done many ‘away days’ with visits to Northern France, Normandy, The Isle of Wight, Cambridgeshire, and of course the legendary Ride London Event. They have over 35 leaders, and, where possible, all of them are trained by British Cycling. They also have full First Aid training

Hatch Warren Runners

In 2019, the club successfully raised over £25,000 for various charities through London Marathon places alone. They organised their own 10K Farleigh Wallop race in September, and successfully donated over £2,000 to local charities – Trussell Trust Foodbank Basingstoke and the Stacy & Lucy Foundation. They had 15 people successfully graduate from our 2019 Couch to 5k programme and the club is going from strength with over 300 members. 20 people were put through the Leadership in Running fitness course (LIRF) to successfully enable them to lead runs for the club and they hold a monthly ‘Run & Talk’ session in which all paces of runners are encouraged to run together and chat to people they wouldn’t normally. 

Oakridge Football Club

This local Basingstoke community club has been 4 years in the making starting from scratch with nothing. The first season saw them finishing 8th out of 10 teams, second season finishing 6th and in the Third season finishing 4th and gaining promotion to the top division.  Currently the team is in 6th position in division 1. The club is all about helping young men through the medium of sport creating a family environment that is safe and fun for all. FA qualified Coach, Matthew Morrison, made the club charter standard and they have just regained it for this season. The club has a strong contract and code of conduct that all the players sign and adhere to.

Totally Tennis

Totally Tennis have been at the forefront of tennis development in the Basingstoke area for over 25 years. The club has actively promoted accessible sessions in the community, developed an award winning grassroots tennis programme for children, produced county and national champions and mentored a new generation of homegrown coaches. Major achievements in 2019 include five county champions and five runner up titles at the Hampshire and IO County Championships, Team Tennis Hampshire and IOW u12 boys and u16 girls div1 champions. The club is an LTA Coach Education Centre and has a community programme for senior tennis.

Wessex Wyvern Modern Pentathlon Club

Wessex Wyvern had a fantastic 2019 with individual, relay and team international medals achieved at European and World Biathle/Triathle/Laser-Run competitions. They had more athletes competing at more competitions and had amazing British Championships results too. Wessex Wyvern have continued to expand over 2019, where club numbers grew, resulting in them offering an additional 2 swimming sessions on 2 separate evenings as well as branching out at 2 Basingstoke Schools (laser-run sessions) with those children becoming club members too. They were also able to offer open water swimming sessions in the summer to allow members to feel confident when racing in open water events.