Tuesday, 18th November, 2008

Bill Latham returned to Spain around 7 weeks ago and has recently started the Division One season with his Once Andalucia team. Bill will be giving us regular insights into his life in Spain and the progress of his team. Here's his first instalment.

I have been busy the last month, with training everyday except Mondays and Sundays. It has been great to get some fitness back after a pretty relaxed month in September. This month has seen the season begin with mixed results. We are currently 5-1 in the league losing the first game last week to Murcia . It was a great game and we were winning for 34 minutes only losing a 6 point lead right at the end. As a result of the loss we are now running third in the league behind Fundosa ONCE and Piensa (Murcia). Losing a game early in the season is going to make it hard because in Spain they don’t play finals. So whoever finishes on top of the ladder wins the league. Now we have to beat them by more in the next game in order to get to the top of the league again.

We have had an increase in training this month, training everyday except Mondays and Sundays which are now the rest days after the game on the Saturday. There are 5 people in Sevilla playing full time Basketball and we are training mornings and afternoons. This allows us to work on our chair skills and ball handling.

Earlier in the month I had a friend from Australia staying with me which was good. This is the second time he has been here while he travels around Europe . During his stay we went to Gibraltar and saw the monkeys and had a look at the city. Gibralter is a English state in the far south of Spain and, although in Spain, the dominate language is English. The monkeys in this area were on parts of the road and would come up very close to everyone and also jump on the cars. In the same area as the monkeys we could see the coast line of Africa which is only 14 km away.  

Only a few more week until I return home for Christmas and see my family. This will be great because it’s the first time for a few years that all the family will be in town for Christmas together. Christmas has always been so much fun especially as all the cousins around my age only live on the 5 acres next door (4 of us and 4 of them). Also my sister is getting married early in the new year which will be the first wedding I have attended and the first for my brother and sisters.

 Regards

 Bill Latham