SPORT isn't just about the superfit, superhuman athletes we gasp at in the World Cup... sport is for all. And at Salt Ayre a group of wheelchair bound young men are proving it. The Bay Warriors - our area's own wheelchair basketball team - demonstrate their desire to succeed every time they don their shirts. The trouble is they've only worn those shirts once! Bay Warriors have just been formed by young men desperate for fun and exercise and will let nothing get in their way. And they got off to a flying start - winning their first game, even though they only had half a team.

Now they're desperate for like minded disabled people to come forward and join up.

Shaun Gash, a 27-year-old support assistant at Skerton High School, has been in a chair for seven years.

He said: "They're a good bunch down there but there's just not enough of us.

"I'd just read about it in the Citizen and decided to give it a go, I don't know many other disabled people in Lancaster you see. I've just been trying to get my life back together. I've been lucky because I've always worked, but it would be good to do something like this. On Sunday when we played the Young Warriors helped us out and played in the chairs. It was all just lads together. We just need some support and some more players then we can represent our area."

But another of the Bay Warriors admits they've still some way to go before they're top of the skill league.

Graham Taylor, 25, from Heysham jumped at the chance to participate at a sport.

"I hadn't done any sport since I was 16 at school," he remembered. "It's harder when you're in a wheelchair for a lot of the time. I was just looking for something to do when this club caught my eye in the Citizen a few weeks ago.

"Now I'm really into it, even though I've only been going for a few weeks. It's quite hard and dangerous though. Whenever you lean forward you seem to hit the deck, so we spent half our time flailing around on the floor."

Forget diving World Cup superstars. When the lads at the Bay Warriors hit the deck they do it with real style.

Call 01524 389529 for more details about the club.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.