New Caledonia Gladiators coach Chantelle Handy aiming to build winning culture

New Caledonia Gladiators coach Chantelle Handy is aiming to create a winning culture and identity within the club.

The 37-year-old, who is the second most capped women’s player for Great Britain with 142 appearances, helped lead the club to an impressive second place finish in Women’s British Basketball League last season as interim head coach.

She has now been appointed on a permanent basis after initially taking on the role in February when the then women’s coach Miguel Ortega was appointed as the club’s first head of basketball.

Handy, whose retirement from playing was announced in May, will continue to work closely with Ortega as they look to kick-on and compete consistently at the top of the table.

The East Kilbride club has ambitious plans for future league success in the newly named Super League Basketball while continuing to compete in Europe.

She said: “We want to win, every coach wants to win, but I keep talking about our culture and what we show as a team.

“I stress to them every day that this is our identity, win or loss, we want to have that identity.

“We are competitive in the domestic league, we have been one of the top two teams in the last two years, so we want to advance on that.

“Of course we want to win the championship, we know that is going to be difficult as there are more teams with a lot more funding this year and the league is going to be a lot more competitive.

“But we want to go for the top and try to win.

“The potential is huge, the owners have been very smart with how they are building the club. It’s about building and they’ve always talked about culture and creating our own player and I think that is huge for us.

“If you look at it, we have two of our academy players on the roster this year playing professional and we’ve got to keep building domestic players, because that’s the way we are going to be competitive.”