The first week of fixtures for the National Basketball League were released this week on the Basketball England website.

The City of Birmingham Rockets senior team were set to face the Bromsgrove Bears at the Nechells Wellbeing Centre.

The further two games against Warwickshire Hawks and the Warwickshire Warriors have also been postponed.

The start of their Division Three campaign has been cut short due to the recent spike in coronavirus cases.

Kirk Dawes, the Chairman of the board of the City of Birmingham Rockets said: “I think it’s a good decision.”

Since Basketball England have decided to postpone the game instead of cancelling it, their aim is to play the game later in the season.

“As long as it remains postponed for us it’s all good, not cancelled” said Dawes.

Last season the Rockets finished second in the Midlands Division Three with 17 wins in 21 games, just missing out on promotion.

This season the Rockets have bought in some new coaches who could help with a push for promotion.

Peter Mintoft, the academy lead coach and projects officer at City of Birmingham Rockets said, “The seniors are the most badly affected by the pandemic, meaning that we can only go in bubbles of six, we can’t play a game basically.”

The younger age groups will not be as affected compared to the senior teams.

“The junior programmes will continue as normal” Mintoft said to Birmingham Eastside.

The Rockets have also gone from training outdoors back to training indoors again while keeping participation numbers high.

Even though times look bleak the chairman of the board Kirk Dawes said, “We are stronger than we have been for a long time.” And “Some good exciting stuff is going on.”

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