NEWPORT Aces basketball team are back in action after more than two years out of the game and are looking ahead to becoming professional.

The women’s team played Swansea Stormtroopers on Thursday, August 26, and narrowly lost a closely contested game.

Newport Aces have had to merge their women’s team with their Under 16s girls’ team due to a lack of facilities and currently practice at John Frost School.

Asa Waite, who created the club, said: “In general it was a great feeling to be back and a lot of the players brought the children with them to watch and I think that's the first time they've been able to see that.

“Not just their dad going to play football on a Sunday or whatever it was their mum going midweek all the way up to Swansea and being competitive.

“It was just a great, great feeling, a really good feeling.

“It was the same as well from the Swansea team that hosted us.”

There is no competitive league for women in Wales, but Mr Waite said that there has been more of an effort from basketball authorities to develop the women’s game since the pandemic.

Newport Aces women’s team have around 20 members at the moment, managing to maintain membership throughout the pandemic despite difficulties with facilities.

Since their last game, there have been at least three more enquiries from women wanting to join the team.

The women’s team is only one part of the club that Mr Waite hopes to one day turn into the first-ever professional club based in Wales.

There are eight teams in total for Newport Aces, a remarkable rise considering they were only formed in 2015.

To become professional, there needs to be change, such as creating club-owned facilities.

Mr Waite said: “I've actually just started my first ever try at a business plan so we can actually look at developing our own facilities and we can really reinvest any  profits or anything back into the facility and back into the club.

“This is rather than funding and putting a lot of facility costs into, into facilities which are already there.

“We're looking for support on this as I've never worked in that capacity to be honest with you, so any support before we can get before regeneration would be great.”

Coaching is also an issue, as many of the coaching staff are players and once they get full time jobs they find it difficult to find the time to commit to coaching a team.

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Despite the difficulties, Mr Waite is optimistic that the Aces have a real chance at turning professional.

“If we can develop our own facility and put the growth in and any capital we can make then we can potentially be looking at Wales’s first ever professional basketball team being based in Newport,” said Mr Waite.

“It would be a little bit long term, you know, five, six years or so in the making, but it's definitely an option.”