WHERE TO BALL?!?
Monday 09 July, 2007

Introducing the new website offering UK ballers a unique way of hooking up for games.

Every week, Streetball.co.uk gets emails from people asking where they can play streetball or get a run.
If they're in London, we can usually help them out. But when little Johnny from Lancashire gets in touch, there's not a lot we can do.

However, a new website could change all that. StreetballPickUp.com allows ballers to upload details (and pictures) of their local courts, contact other players and even arrange runs.

Streetball.co.uk caught up with the guy behind it all - Ian Rudd - to get the full SP.


What is streetballpickup.com?

Streetballpickup.com is a website that allows basketball enthusiasts across the UK to get information on the streetball courts in their area. We currently have information on 70 courts from 18 regions across the nation, but fingers crossed, this number will grow with the number of users.

Streetballpickup users can actively contribute to the site by suggesting new courts or by adding additional information to existing ones. It’s this contribution element that I really hope goes someway to creating a real online community, all brought together by the same passion.

As well as being able to see what facilities are available, users can also announce the date, time and duration that they will be at any given court and can invite others to join them.

One thing that I really urge people to appreciate is that all scheduled pickups on Streetballpickup are not bookings! The sole purpose of scheduling appearances is so that people can be guaranteed to go to a court and to not be the only one there, if there are people there already, you’ve still got to call next.


How did you come up with the idea?

Haha, well, I think I’ve pretty much got you to thank for that one! I was on the streetball.co.uk forums one day last year - I used to read the comments in the BUSA thread every Wednesday to get an idea of how the other teams in our division did before the results got officially put up. I noticed that that there were loads of posts in the streetball section made by people just wanting a run, asking if anyone else would join them.

I remember thinking that it would be pretty awesome to have a site where all of the major streetball courts in the UK were listed and that people could look at any of them for any given day to see if anyone was also going to be playing there … there’s nothing worse than turning up at a court that stays empty all day!

As I started to think about it more, I started planning out the site and before too long, started to develop it whenever I had some time between studying, working, playing ball and the SU! By the summer last year, I was pretty happy with the site and had added a few of the more notorious courts in London, I also added the streetball court at my (Herts) university (Telford Court).

As a test run, I asked about 30 people from Herts teams if they wouldn’t mind not saying a word to each other over the next couple of months about playing on Telford Court, but to do everything through the site, just to see if it could potentially work. In the following couple of months we had some of the best turnouts Telford has ever seen, with teams, shirt colours and a whole heap of trash talk sorted out prior to the games.

How does it work?

I’ll run through some of the more major aspects of the site since I could talk about it all day! Pretty much everything that I miss out can be found in the FAQ section of the site.

Initially, all users have to create an account. This takes roughly a minute and is completely free. Once an account has been created they can then navigate to the ‘Courts’ section of the site to view the courts for any given region. At present, the vast number of courts on Streetballpickup.com are located within London, which is purely because I live there and have added them myself. I’m hoping that this will change soon though and that there becomes more of a balance with the rest of the UK.

Once a user has selected a court, they can obtain information such as directions, photos and ratings as well as the details that only the locals know. Users can also add to this information by via the links provided, all provided information is reviewed and if it makes sense, it is added to the court. Selecting a date to play on the calendar at the bottom of the page then takes the user to a page when they can provide the time, duration and shirt colour, as well as seeing who else has scheduled to play there that day. Once a pickup has been scheduled, the user will be able to see it on their homepage.

If a user selects the ‘Ballers’ section, they are taken to a list showing all of Streetballpickup’s members. Once a user’s profile is selected, you can add them as a quick contact (meaning that they appear at the top of your list) or write them a message, which will be shown on their profile if they accept it.

In order to invite someone to a pickup, simply select the invite icon for that person in the ballers list and in the following screen select which one of your arranged pickups that you would like to invite them too. The invitee will then receive an email informing them to look at their ‘My Activity’ section in order to either accept or decline the invitation.

The last real thing I guess is adding a court to the site. Users can select the ‘Add My Court’ section and select the region that the court is within. From there details on the court can be added and up to 5 pictures can be provided too. As users can continuously add information to courts, the only information that is initially required for a court is its region and its name.

Submitted courts and data will all be reviewed by an administrator and if everything seems ok, it will be added to the site within 24 hours.

What is your basketball background?

I started off playing basketball at 11. The bus that I used to take to school got me there about an hour early and the options were to sit in the cold or to go play basketball in the gym. The club that ran at my school was called LIV and was coached by James Potter who still does an amazing job promoting basketball to kids across Essex.

I left LIV and played for the Ware Rebels at U16 and U18 levels under Dave Titmuss. As there was no under 20 team at Ware, I joined the senior side, coached by Mark Clark. Mark was awesome and really helped me a lot, unfortunately though my newly acquired University life made juggling the two difficult, and I had to choose between them.

Although I regret not having the dedication to stay playing at a higher level, I thoroughly loved my time playing BUSA basketball. In three seasons we managed to secure two promotions to take us from division 3B to division 1 on the south east, and even managed to sneak in an appearance in Sheffield …. although the less said about that game the better!

What do you hope the site will achieve?

First and foremost, the major goal of Streetballpickup, without doubt, is to get more people in the UK playing basketball. I hope that the data Streetballpickup offers can be used by many to find local courts that they never knew existed.

As well as getting more people involved with the beautiful game, I really hope that Streetballpickup can act as a means of introducing people to each other, who may otherwise have never met.

Finally, and this is more for me …. I want Streetballpickup to have information and photos for every single streetball court in the UK, I don’t care if it’s a single hoop in the middle of a park with no concrete or if it looks like an outdoor version of Madison Sq Garden, I want them all I tell ya!!!!