Big Interview: Clive Allen

For someone who didn’t start playing basketball until his teenage years – because he was embarrassed about his height – Clive Allen endured a truly stellar career.

Growing up in Netherton, Dudley, Allen began his sporting life playing football and trying to blend in with his classmates.

But his talent would eventually help him win a scholarship in America, leading to a 15-year career with the Birmingham Bullets when the sport was really rocking in the region.

“When I was at school I hated being tall and I didn’t want to be involved in anything that showed that,” said Allen. “At Hillcrest School, in Netherton, there weren’t too many black people and I didn’t want to stand out any more, so I didn’t start playing basketball until I left.

“Mike Landell, who was a Great Britain basketball player from Dudley, was the person who got me into the sport.

“He encouraged me to go for my first trial when I was about 16 to 17.

“But Dave Fisher, who was the coach at the time, said I wasn’t good enough for the senior squad and I was also too old for the under-17s. I was told to come back in about a year.”

Allen is now head coach at West Bromwich Albion Basketball Academy, which comes under the Sporting Albion umbrella and is directly linked with the football team.

The 56-year-old has eaten, lived and breathed basketball since deciding to take the sport seriously and has come along way from day working in a factory.

“I was working at Grazebrookes Foundries in Dudley, but was made redundant,” he said. “I started getting back into sport again and it was while playing football at the Aston Villa Leisure Centre I was asked by someone to switch sports. I started playing in the Sandwell Central League for Sandwell Basketball Club and we used to play at the old swimming centre, believe it or not.

“I was playing in the Central League when the coach from Bullets saw me and took me down for another trial – and then offered me a contract.

“The first season I probably played, what felt like, five minutes, but every time I came on the crowd loved it because of the effort and hustle I put in.”

Allen’s efforts eventually saw him land a scholarship to play at Northwest Nazarene University, in Idaho, which was a Christian College. He also studied to become a social worker.

But his American adventure was cut short after his wife fell pregnant with his daughter, Dominique, who herself is now an Great Britain and England international and represented the women’s basketball squad at the Commonwealth Games in Australia.

“My wife wanted our baby to be born in the UK we came back from US a little early,” said Allen, who played most of his career as a power forward or at centre.

“I started playing for the Bullets again and playing in America was such a learning curve and it had transformed my game.

“At the time, in BBL, a lot of British players sat on the bench because it was taken over by Americans, like Premiership football today really.

“But we had a really strong team in the 90s, with Nigel Lloyd, Fab Flournoy, Tony Dorsey, Tony Simms and Reggie Kirk

“But one of the main things was we always had a really good relationship with each other and also the fans.”

Allen – who enjoyed two stints with the Bullets, from 1985 top1987 and then 1988 until 2001 – first won the BBL play-off finals in 1995/96, but said the second title in 1997/98, also at Wembley Arena, was the pinnacle of his playing career.

A year later, however, the squad was left with just five senior players. But the lack of resources once again made the team a stronger unit.

“Winning the finals in 1998 was my greatest moment but a few years later, when it didn’t work out with some of the American players, it was just left of five of us. That was Lloyd, Kirk, Simms, Flourney and myself – but, again, it was some of the best playing days of my life because we were so close and we also knew we couldn’t foul out or anything like that. We were also playing under the manager Nick Nurse at the time, who is now doing really well at the Toronto Raptors in the NBA, as well as Mike Finger.

“The Bullets also eventually went full circle because when Australian Harry Wrublewski took over he wanted to take the game from leisure centres and into arenas.

“We moved into the NIA but when the indoor athletics took over we played at the NEC. Both were great venues and we attracted big crowds but we got a new owner again who moved us back to the Aston Villa Leisure Centre.”

Allen’s career was eventually ended due to a condition called neurosarcoidosis, which affected his spine.

But once his playing days were over he was able to refocus and become one of the Black Country’s most prominent coaches.

After enjoying one last hurrah with the Black Country Bears, winning the title after dropping down a division, he briefly joined Simms as coach at the Aston Athletics basketball team in 2005.

He became assistant coach at the Milton Keynes Lions under Lloyd and was then general manager for the Birmingham Panthers, again under Lloyd, during their only season, from 2007/08.

But it was a conversation with Jamie Bunch, sporting director of the Albion Foundation in 2009, that really shaped his coaching career.

“I didn’t know what the injury was at the time but it affected my back and how much I could jump, which is when I stopped playing for the Bullets,” said Allen. “I dropped down a division and played for the Black Country Bears – and won a title – but I had been coaching all the way through and launched my own Big Sky Basketball academy. I worked with more than 70 schools in one year covering Dudley, Stourbridge and Halesowen.

“Jamie Bunch then got in contact and wanted to follow the Sporting Lisbon way, where there were other teams affiliated with the club.

“I was asked to look at basketball, and someone else was brought in for cricket and women’s football.

“I used to run basketball sessions at Sir Gilbert Claughton, which would end with a big tournament but they wanted to set up a team and take it more seriously.

“I wanted to push it too and through my connections at the Bullets I met Jamie.

“We only had two teams when we started at under-16 and under-18. Now we have 12, which goes from under-14s up to the men’s, which are now linked with Wolverhampton University.

“I also coach at Dudley College and Sandwell College too, so there is a bigger network for basketball players.”

For more information about Allen’s programmes, contact 07702 369606 or clive.allen@albionfoundation.co.uk