By Carlena Knight
“He was really at my heart”, were the words used by former national basketballer, Andy “Job” Christian when speaking on his past experiences playing with the late great Noel “Nyah” Roberts.
Roberts hailed from the Ottos community and was mostly known for his flashy style on the ball court as well as his shooting range. It was through that success with his teams, Pioneers, Sufferers Choice and finally Challengers that he was selected to play on the men’s basketball senior team, the Wadadli Bulldogs. It is also during that time on the national team that he played alongside Christian who was a friendly rival throughout the years playing on the Villa/Point team, Skillville.
Christian commended Roberts for his leadership skills on the court.
“The guy for me who was really at my heart, even if some of the players didn’t know that was Nyah. Nyah Bingie! Nyah was a player who just controlled things,” he added.
He also spoke on his club and national teammate, Carl “Bowlie” Knight.
“Bowlie was a team leader. He kept the rules. He kept the passion. He kept everything quiet on the team and whenever we needed someone to take control, he took control.”
Christian who will go down as quite arguably one of the best all-around athletes in the country having played football, cricket, track and field and basketball spoke highly however of his days of playing with his village team, Skillville.
“For me the best memory is like every time before a game we all got together as friends. We all got together as teammates and it was just like a party. Every time we had a game, we were always geeked up, everybody was motivated and we just said ‘hey, this is for Villa, this is for Point, Fort Road whatever you want to say and I think that kept the community together. We had really a big community.
“Those days, whenever there was a fight and we know we fighting, it’s everybody fighting for everybody,” Christian said while speaking on the Good Morning JoJo Sport show.