by Graeme Willingham
Lindsay Gaze joins the 45 years:90 seasons celebrations as Not Bad Thanks tallies the Facts and Figures
On April Fools’ Day, the extraordinary Not Bad Thanks Basketball Club, a one-team Melbourne community sports club, reached a new club kilometrestone (as they call it) – 45 years:90 seasons. This achievement was acknowledged at the Club’s Season 2024-25 Golden Elbow awards dinner on Friday, April 4.
There, Court Captain Czar (887 games, 15,209 points,1433 fouls) told his teammates: “NBT has lasted because it is a club, not a sporting team. It endures because of a loyalty to its ethos of comradeship, spirit, competitiveness and absurdity. A unique blend not commonly found, but once found, cherished.”
Not Bad Thanks, or NBT as it was originally registered with the Business House Association in 1980, started playing at the long-gone Albert Park Basketball Stadium. F Grade, appropriately, was the club’s starting point. Now it’s playing B Grade in the Melbourne Central Basketball Association at MSAC in Albert Park on Thursday nights.
Not Bad Thanks lost its semi-final a month back, so has re-appeared in B Grade for Season #91 … and the quest for Premiership #8.
For the Club’s most recent premiership, season 2022-23, a commemorative 2022-23 Heathcore Shiraz was bottled and labelled Not Bad Thanks Red Premiership Red, the red a reference to the red tops worn by the premiership players, and the colour of the wine. The label notes: ‘A vintage 2022-23 Heathcote Shiraz to celebrate a vintage 2022-23 Premiership’. The grapes were grown by an NBT Founder, Big John, and his partner Little Jen at their Colbinabbin Estate vineyard.
Big John is just one of the nicknamed club characters in the book Not Bad Thanks, published by Wilkinson Publishing in 2018. The book jacket explains: Not Bad Thanks has grappled with tragedy, authority, an outing, generational challenges, equal opportunity, skill shortages, globalisation, an aging workforce, parental duties, dysfunctional patrons, media scrutiny and premiership droughts. Add to that Covid lockdowns.
In the book’s foreword, FIBA Hall of Fame Legend, Lindsay Gaze wrote: “During the long history of the Club, we follow their progress from F Grade to A Grade sharing triumphs and tragedies along the way. This is an unusual story as we normally expect to be reading about the life and times of participants at the highest level of sport, and those more commonly in the public eye. I believe this is the first book to delve into the grass-roots basketball in Australia. The fact members of NBT never, or rarely, train, nor receive any coaching, does not mean they are any less committed to their cause. They represent that vast majority of participants at the recreational level, providing the solid foundation for the sport from which champions develop.”
On hearing of the 45:90 dinner, Gaze sent this massage: “Congratulations to members of the NBT team/s on the 45-year milestone. Are you still upholding the tradition of Thursday night basketball being referred to as ‘Drunk’s Night’? I’d like to bet that there is no chance that a group of players today would be able to match the experience of the NBT team from 45 years ago! What are the chances of you or anyone else duplicating your 90-season record? I would have loved to have been able to join you in the celebration of this outstanding milestone, but my physical abilities have gone beyond their use-by-date! Despite this, I am still inspired by what the NBT team have been able to achieve and perhaps (one day) I can grab some mates and get back on the court to challenge you. When asked how our team is going, I look forward to being able to say “Not Bad Thanks”!!
“Wow!”, “Extraordinary!”, “Bloody amazing!” were among instant Player responses, accompanying their full-on standing ovation. Lord Albert jumped in to lead a stirring rendition of The NBT Anthem, which is the words Enn Bee Tee over and over again to the tune of Silent Night.
The Club was established April Fools’ Day, 1980 as a means of keeping together a bunch of Aussies who lived in London in the mid-1970s. There were nine Founding Fathers (Dokter, The Expatriot, Big John, Mad Dog, Bloody Gloves, Squeaker, Lord Albert, The Great RP and Ollie). There is still one, aged 77, listed as a registered player, although he set foot on the court last season in just two games … when the game result was ‘safe’.
At the dinner, the Club’s Statistician, known as Numero Sums, presented the following historical ‘Facts and Figures’:
• 45 Years: 90 Seasons
• 1,984 games played, including finals
• 7 Premierships (1992 – E Grade, 2007 – D, 2010-11 – D, 2011-12 – C, 2012-13 – C, 2014-15 – A Res, 2022-23 – B)
• Most games played 1,321 games (Doktor)
• Most consecutive games 200 (2x6Packs)
• Memorial ‘Unavailables’ list for deceased players (Expatriot, Squeaker and Rudge)
• 55,141 points
• 21,651 fouls
• 71 players have represented the Club
• 24 different seasonal Golden Elbow winners for player adjudged by secret peer voting to have most ‘given it heaps’ on the court
• One player has won it 18 times (Czar)
• 10 Squeaker’s Basket winners for most points
• One player has won it 45 times (Czar)
• Most points 15,209 points (Czar)
• Highest season points score 417 (Czar)
• 20 players who have scored 100-plus points in a season
• Most consecutive 3-pointers 7 (Czar)
• 18 Bloody Gloves Bowl winners for most fouls
• Most fouls 2,369 (Instigator)
• One player has won it 28 times (Instigator)
• Highest season fouls 69 (Instigator and 2x6Packs)
• Most consecutive 5-foul games 7 (Instigator)
• 10 members of the Smacken Spree Brigade for 50+ fouls in a season
• 63 venues for seasonal awards dinners (ranging from exclusive private men’s clubs to backyard bbqs)
• 6 tribunal appearances
• Own Clubrooms (The Emerald Hotel)
• $678,455 f&b expenditure value at Clubrooms
• Goldleaf honour board for Golden Elbow winners in The Clubrooms
• A strict rule that Players must commit to remain with teammates for an after-game debrief at the Clubrooms
• Perpetual sculptured Golden Elbow trophy
• Perpetual silver bowl Bloody Gloves trophy
• Engraved pewter mugs/wine decanters for century games played after 400 games
• Exclusive Club handshake with greeting: “Not Bad Thanks, Y’Self?”
• Club logo
• 16 Life Members
• Club Anthem in an 11-song Songbook
• Club poet laureate who has penned prose at key anniversaries and premiership celebrations
• Patrons group
At the dinner, Czar won the Golden Elbow for the 19th time and Squeaker’s Basket for most points (165) for the 45th time, while Scoop won the Bloody Gloves Bowl for the most fouls (28) for the sixth time. They played just 13 games because of byes and walkovers.
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Images: The 45:90 t-shirt and the Red Premiership Red label
Great stuff, Graeme! Clubs of all sports and at all levels of expertise can learn something from NBT’s approach to both sport and life. What’s planned for the 50:100 season?
Goodness knows Ian. That’s about 200 Thursday game nights away! Maybe the film Not Bad Thanks based on the book, or the musical? A premiership for that 50:100 kilometrestone would definitely be on the list, according to Court Capt Czar.