Harlow Hawks Basketball Club was setup by Coach Shab Niaz during the 1999-2000 season with approx 12-14 players under the age of 18, the purpose of this was to give the basketball training sessions a focus and to get them ready to enter a team into the Herts League for the following season. The club over the years has grown and now has a Senior and Junior programme. The senior programme caters for both competitive play and social. Hawks ran two senior teams that compete in Hertfordshire County League Divisions 1 and 2 as the senior sections expanded. But for the 2013-14 season, Hawks reverted back to one senior team with a view of kick starting the development of the next batch of players for the future of the senior programme. There is a Social Adult session held on Saturday’s which is a pick up and play session for the non-competition level players that wish to participate in a fun play only session. It is a mixed session and the ability and age of players vary, some people are ex-players while others use the sessions are a more enjoyable way of a good workout. The age of the players for the social session ranges from 18 – 55 year olds. The Hawks run a full Junior programme which caters for children from the age of 5 through to 18. There are 4 Junior age groups and each of these are divided up into 3 school year ages. The age groups are U8, U11, U12, U14, U17 and U18 Therefore the players that are in school years 1-3 inclusive would be in the U8 age group. The U11’s particpate in the Junior Central Venue League which Hawks have hosted since 2007. Starting with the 2012-13 season there were not enough teams to host the U14/U17 JCVL’s in Harlow so Hawks entered the Royston JCVL for the U17’s and for the U14’s they played a number of home/away fixtures. From the start of 2016-17 the U17’s will also play a number of home/away fixtures due to the collapse of the Royston JCVL. For the season 2012-13, Hawks entered their first ever Junior National League team, which competed in the U15 age group. The team had a successful first year at this level winning a number of games and loosing a few close one’s as well. They finished 7th in a 10 team league. Now entered into the U18 national league programme, the team has continued to grow with fresh faces joining the squad each year. Also during the 2012-13 season former Hawks Junior Joshua Steel (16 years old) was selected to play in the Nike Jordan Brand Classic in New York at the home of the Brooklyn Nets (Barclays Centre). Joshua was selected as one of the top 10 players out of 40 for his age in Europe, in the annual Jordan Brand European training camp.
