Ryan Clasper - Hampshire

“My basketball journey started in primary school with Michael Ball & CJ lee who were promoting the sport.

This led to me attending a Sunday training session with rising stars and Coach Lee Ryan playing a CVL.

It was suggested I went to try out for The Solent Stars. This was when my basketball journey really began at U12.

My parents were also hooked on helping the Solent Stars Men’s team, setting the court up, and selling programs ( I also became a floor sweeper for the men’s games). My Dad then became team manager at Solent, and my Mum became the fixtures secretary for 7 NL teams.

Bev Guymon was a huge influence and always pushed me to be better. Bev arranged for me to go to Hampshire trails for the U15, I was only 13 at the time. I went on for the inter-county champs, I played for Hampshire and it was there I was then selected to go and represent Southwest England, with trips to Prague and Sweden coming 2nd in both tournaments.

I stayed with Solent through the entire junior program with coaches Steve hatchet, Ben peacock, and Ben Stanley.

At the time Solent did not have a Men’s team, so I played for The Portsmouth Smugglers, with Micky Burn who competed in the Div 3 National Basketball League.

After becoming an adult and life got in the way, I had a year out until I joined the British army and from there it took off once more playing for my unit, regiment, and my corp. This then led to me finally playing for the Army at the Inter-Services Competition, and from there I was then selected to represent my country's armed forces at Shape (Nato Headquarters) in Belgium where we would play against other nato forces, and most of those teams had 3/4 Euro-League players so the standards there was amazing.

My biggest achievement to date was winning MVP and a military competition where I was awarded MVP for my corps and taking my team to win the trophy back from the royal signals who won it the previous year.”