Clive Allen helps Albion to spread their net

Allen, who played his entire career with the Birmingham Bullets, has turned his time to coaching these days.

He's head of basketball development at the West Bromwich Albion academy, based in Sandwell.

Whether the team is struggling with just five starting players or boasting a roaster in double figures, a love for the game is alive and kicking in the Black Country.

And Allen has helped nurture that talent, which has seen some of his students land trials at colleges over in the United States.

He said: "We started the programme with just five players, who were recruited through a development programme and played in the national league.

"We had about 15 kids during our best year and we won the league, which was about three years ago.

"The following two years we won the league again and we really stepped up our recruitment.

"What happened after was probably my fault because we recruited a lot of under-16s, who hadn't left school.

"It meant they were not able to come to the academy, so it left us with five players in the older age group again.

"In a way it has been good for the players because they know they have to play the full 40 minutes, so they have to be sensible and not give away any silly fouls."

Despite WBA being last year's league champions, Allen took the bold decision to drop the team down a division, to give his slender senior squad more of a chance.

The side is now competing in the England School League, which sees the team travel as far as Coventry and Nottingham, rather Milton Keynes and further afield.

Allen also believes basketball is once again attracting more and more youngsters with new academies popping up all over the country.

He said: "It's great at the moment and we have two or three squads at WBA and some of the local schools are also looking into the sport.

"At Albion we now have a set up that goes from under-10s and under-12s, right through to under-18s boys and girls and then the academy.

"It means players can stay with us right the way through and most then go on to play basketball at university or join men's teams."

Some players go even further including the likes of Sam Harvey, who won a scholarship at a prep-school in Arizona where coaches from across America come to see the talent on display.

He has already been offered a further scholarship at Montana Tech, but Allen said he is still weighing up his options.

Another WBA player, Theo Grant, has gone on to play international basketball and is currently touring Europe in the hope of attracting the attention of a big club.

Allen has so much faith in his community programmes he is now trying to expand them further afield.

He said: "I am currently working with Wolves, trying to get something going there.

"The academies all form part of Premier League for Sport, which is a funding programme that gives team the chance to support different sports.

"Albion decided to look at basketball and the club also supports judo, volleyball and boxing.

"It's all about promoting new or different sports within the community and the clubs get funding to do that.

"Our Albion basketball team plays against the likes of Stoke, the Manchester teams, Spurs, Aston Villa.

"There are quite a number of teams that have taken up basketball as part of the Premier League programme, which includes Wolves too."

A tournament has been organised at the Walsall campus of Wolverhampton University later this month, which will see all the Midlands teams play against each other.

Allen believes such tournaments will help promote all the basketball programmes in the area, which he thinks continue to go from strength-to-strength.

He also believes women's basketball is also doing well and sees a bright future for females representing Albion.

He said: "The women's team did not win a game during the first year and were losing by 20 plus points.

"They are still not winning games but now the side is competing."

One member of the squad, Lauren Saa, from Dudley, has gone to join the England under-16s regional programme.

Allen said: "We hope to promote the girls' academy and to see more under-16s to come through."