Contents

• Early life
• Life as a Paralympic athlete
• Retirement as a Paralympic athlete

British Wheelchair Basketball:

Maurice dedicated much of his life to the sport of wheelchair basketball and contributed immensely to the sporting community as a player, as a coach, and through a variety of administrative roles.

Maurice Hammerton (1961– 2025) was a two-time Paralympian who competed for Great Britain in wheelchair basketball at the 1980 and 1984 Paralympic Games.  He also went on to coach wheelchair basketball and continued to contribute to the disability sporting community throughout his life - serving on numerous Boards and Committees of sports organisations.

Early life

Maurice Hammerton was born on 14 April 1961. He went to a special school for children with a disability.  It was a sporting school – partly for rehabilitation and partly because the skills learnt in a sporting environment help with day to day living.  The then captain of the GB wheelchair basketball team was invited into the school to talk with and coach the students and introduced Maurice to the game.  He then started playing at school when he was around 13 years old.

Life as a Paralympic athlete

Having started playing wheelchair basketball at school, Maurice Hammerton joined a senior team when he left and eventually played internationally for Great Britain for seven years, making more than 150 appearances.  He competed for Great Britain in two Paralympic Games, Arnhem in 1980 and Stoke Mandeville in 1984.

 Maurice Hammerton (back row, 2nd from the right) with the1984 Paralympic Wheelchair Basketball Team

Retirement as a Paralympic athlete

After retiring from playing Maurice was asked by British Wheelchair Basketball, or Great Britain Wheelchair Basketball Association as they were at the time, to be a player coach for their second team.  After a couple of years he finally stopped playing completely but continued coaching with them. He also served as a Board Member from 1993 to 2008 and was responsible for much of the development of the formal coaching structure for GB wheelchair basketball.

From 1999 until 2019, Maurice was the Development Officer for the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (Europe) and, in 2015, he became Chairman of the Sheffield Steelers Wheelchair Basketball Club. He also worked for Sheffield City Council for 25 years.

In 2022 Maurice Hammerton joined the board of British Para Table Tennis as an Independent Non-Executive Director.

Maurice died in January 2025, aged 63.

References

• 'Interview with Maurice Hammerton' - Samuel Brady, National Paralympic Heritage Trust, 2020 
• https://britishwheelchairbasketball.co.uk/a-tribute-to-maurice-hammerton/
• https://www.britishparatabletennis.com/blogs/featured-stories/maurice-hammerton-1961-2025
• https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/the-biggest-amateur-wheelchair-basketball-club-in-the-world-hidden-in-sheffield-65905
• https://www.instagram.com/britwheelbball/p/DEpggO1RoMj/