PETE Dimond was the winner of this year’s Service to Sport Award for 40 years of dedication to the sport of basketball.

After winning the award, Pete had a massive smile on his face and said: “This is very unexpected as we are a small club so it was nice to see the small clubs recognised.”

Pete has ran the Aldworth Arrows basketball club for 40 years and is not about to call it quits on his court time as he excited about his latest young team, the under-14s, and would like to see them into adulthood.

Aged 69, he started the club in June 1979 with 12 girls as they had to form a club so they could enter a team in the league.

The club has gone on to be made up mainly of Aldworth-based players past and present.

Over the years it has had 11 England international and currently has a Welsh junior international in their ranks.

He also set up the twinning event with Brains L’Alleud, in Belgium, which has seen teams from the two locations play each other over the past 23 years while club teams have won numerous league titles in the Wessex League. In the 1980s the under-19s team was crowned national cup champions.