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Ormskirk St Helens Saints chairman Mike Lea says grassroots basketball in the Northwest continues to suffer from underfunding. This is despite the British Basketball League obtaining private investment for the professional game.

Teenager Joe Ryan will represent Great Britain in the youth category of the upcoming IFMA European Muaythai Championships. The competition will begin in Istanbul today (Saturday February 12) and run until February 21.

St Helens star Michael Smith lost to eventual winner Jonny Clayton in Liverpool's Premier League quarter-finals last night (February 10). The World Championship finalist remains pointless in the Premier League after two weeks of action.

Cheshire Phoenix could climb as high as third in the BBL table with a win over the Bristol Flyers on Sunday (February 13). The Nix currently sit fourth in the table and could leapfrog the Sheffield Sharks if the Yorkshire side fail to beat the Glasgow Rocks.

Darts player Michael Smith was at Broad Oak Community Primary School in St Helens yesterday launching Bullseye Maths.

Merseyside Nighthawks have relaunched their youth academy on Sunday after volunteers started to dwindle in 2019. The Nighthawks, which originally started as Birkenhead Nighthawks, were started in the 1980s.

Premier League Darts makes its return to Liverpool on tonight (February 10), with St Helens’ Michael Smith chasing his first points of the year on home turf. The M&S Bank Arena hosted a night of the Premier League’s annual tour every year between 2008 and 2020.

Neal Skupski and doubles partner Wesley Koolhof go up against Rohan Bopanna and Denis Shapovalov in the quarterfinals of the Rotterdam Open later today. They edged a 5-7, 7-5, 10-7 win over Russian powerhouse Karen Khachanov and defending singles champion Andrey Rublev in the first round.

The world's top darts players will meet at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool this Thursday for the second round of the Premier League of Darts. Peter Wright will begin the night at the top of the leaderboard following his win in the round one final in Cardiff over Jonny Clayton.

Widnes Wild General Manager Wez Spurett is aiming for a playoff spot as his side moves into the business stage of their NIHL Division 1 North campaign.  Widnes are fifth in the league, level on points with fourth-placed Scimitars after 16 league games.