Hello everyone, Rob Milner, Chairman of the Portsmouth Force here. I’m writing this message as one of our members was in a shocking basketball accident a few weeks ago.

Recently, our club Portsmouth Force received the award for Community Club of the year in the South from Basketball England. We received this award because of our close and supportive basketball community.

With this in mind, one of our well-known local basketball figures, Paul Goodale was in a basketball accident which can only be described as horrific.

I’m sure most of you know Paul volunteers as the voice of the Portsmouth Force at home games and massively contributes to what is arguably the best non-BBL basketball gameday experience in the UK with his gameday announcing, music, sound effects and in game jingles.

Many of you also listen to his Talking Basketball Podcast which is the highest ranked basketball podcast in the UK with over 60K downloads a month.

Paul also plays locally for the Portsmouth Fury local league and was vying to represent FIMBA Great Britain at the European Championships in Italy in July.

Above all Paul has been in and around Portsmouth basketball for decades and I’m sure you recognise the face.

Unfortunately, during a recent game Paul was in an incident which resulted in his top four front teeth being knocked out.

This is why at our last Force home game fixture Paul watched the game from the stands. He now requires extensive dental surgery including four root canals as well as ongoing orthodontic treatment.

The treatment itself is currently estimated to cost over £5,000.

This is clearly a significant cost that follows a horrific injury, physically and mentally, and this is something I believe we can assist with as a club to ease this traumatic situation.

I would like to say a huge thank you to anyone who does contribute to this. Paul is a massive part of our basketball community and there is no point in having a community if we can’t help others when in need, I’m not expecting to get anywhere near the total but all contribution are gratefully received and will help ease Paul’s current burden during this time.

Every little bit will help.