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![\"BBC](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/c2e1a570-9dd8-11f0-9f23-2534d63ace40.jpg.webp.webp\")
BBC<\/p>\nBBC<\/p>\n
Jack Davey leads the Exeter Otters, who were founded in 1980<\/p>\n
The head coach of a Devon-based wheelchair basketball club says his “big goal” is to see his side become as well-known as other professional rugby and football sides in its city home.<\/p>\n
Jack Davey leads the Exeter Otters, who were founded in 1980 and are believed to be the UK’s oldest such team.<\/p>\n
In previous years, the club had struggled to put out a side out, but the club is now running three teams – including the south-west of England’s first under-14 junior team.<\/p>\n
He said: “You’ve got big clubs within Exeter: the Exeter Chiefs and you’ve got Exeter [City] football and I really want it to be along that line essentially.”<\/p>\n
‘Huge for me’<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old said he prided himself on “building people not just players” and that membership had increased from just two in 2021 to about 70 currently.<\/p>\n
He said: “There’s a huge age range [from five to 74], but it really creates that family environment where people who wouldn’t necessarily socialise together have the opportunity to do that through the power of sport.<\/p>\n
“There was a need. I really wanted to ensure that the juniors had somewhere to go because, at the end of the day, they’re going to be the future that keeps the club going.”<\/p>\n
One of the junior team, Alfie, explained how special it was for him to be able to play with other children, including his younger brother who is not a wheelchair user.<\/p>\n
He said: “It’s huge for me to have other kids my age because, when I joined this club, there weren’t any; just loads of adults.”<\/p>\n
“It’s really cool to be able to do a sport together, which, I guess for some kids in wheelchairs, they just don’t get.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BBC Jack Davey leads the Exeter Otters, who were founded in 1980 The head coach of a Devon-based…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-179868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}