It is now over a decade ago that Vikki Hammond called time on her playing career.
But the allure of the sport where she won bronze at Isle of Wight 2011 proved irresistible and she is now pushing boundaries in a different role, taking aim at becoming Guernsey’s first female Level Three referee – on par with leading local officials Jai and Luke Vaudin.
This would be a significant feat for anyone, yet all the more remarkable given Hammond was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2021.
What has not killed her has certainly made her stronger. After beating cancer almost four years ago, she declared herself ‘Vikki Hammond 2.0’ and began pushing to achieve more.
She left her job of nearly 10 years to pursue career challenges – she is now family office manager at Albecq Trust – but pertinently also began training as a basketball table official.
Hammond is now thoroughly enjoying being a Level Two referee and using the ‘power of the whistle’.
‘I’m quite a control freak,’ she said with a chuckle.
‘Being ill made me realise how much more strength and power I have within myself.
‘Reffing and now my job have brought out this side of me, a power that I have that I quite like.
‘And reffing, it’s just nice to be involved with basketball from a different perspective.
‘It’s given me a big understanding of the game as well. I think especially having played helps me ref.
‘But it’s just there’s something about controlling that game and having that power.’
Her drive has not gone unnoticed and she has received invites to officiate some UK games – with pay to boot – and join a referees’ camp later in the year towards potentially pursuing a Level Three qualification.
Overall, though long retired from playing, Hammond reckons she dedicates the equivalent of a day per week to basketball – and not just refereeing.
She is also a Guernsey Basketball Association committee member who organises officials for matches, together with providing their stream of social media posts. Not bad for a busy mother-of-two.
By her admission, Hammond (nee Loveridge) was never one of the best in her playing days.
But she was nevertheless good enough to be selected for Guernsey’s representative squads over an extended period.
Although the Grammar School student earned her sporting stripes playing hockey for Guernsey and the Channel Islands, fate had it that star basketballer Kath Guille was among their PE staff.
Hammond recalls herself and several other students being inspired by Guille’s gold with the women’s basketball squad at Guernsey 2003 and asking her to create a Grammar School girls’ club.
The Grammar girls took their talents onto the national stage in making the English Schools’ quarter-finals.
‘If it hadn’t been for that gold in 2003, I don’t think I would be part of the basketball family,’ she said.
‘We left school and I carried on playing because I just really enjoyed it.
‘It’s a really good sport – it’s really friendly and it’s nice.’
Hammond’s Island Games bow came at Rhodes 2007 and it will be defined by the women’s near-miss with a medal, losing 59-53 to Bermuda in the play-off for bronze.
‘That was quite upsetting, because that was the first time I really experienced, as a team, losing something so big.
‘But winning that the following time in Isle of Wight was pretty special.’
There, the Guernsey girls inflicted revenge on Bermuda, winning that bronze play-off 55-47.
Hammond has certainly not forgotten about that.
‘I use it as a fun fact for things – I was actually part of a team that won a bronze medal.
‘I wouldn’t say I played loads and loads, but I was part of the squad.
‘I wasn’t one of the best players, but I was a good enough player to make stuff. I just really enjoyed it.’
Being a women’s inter-insular player for Guernsey has meant picking up a victory every single edition since the millennium.
Having contributed to these triumphs during the height of her own career, Hammond highlighted the camaraderie behind it.
‘That’s what I love about inter-insulars most.
‘You’re just so together as a family, the “Green Army” as they call it – it’s great.
‘You all go over and then you watch each other, you cheer each other on, and it’s great when it’s a 4-0 whitewash for Guernsey.
‘It’s that side of basketball and team sports with the inter-insulars that I really liked and enjoyed.’
Becoming pregnant with son Charlie in 2015 marked a new chapter of family life and seemingly the end of her basketball days.
‘I just had a baby, did up a house, and basketball didn’t fit into that. So I took a massive break from it,’ she recalled.
Her family grew further with daughter Millie’s birth in late 2019, but it was soon after that she found herself sidelined for a significantly less positive reason.
Multiple members of Vikki’s family have been confirmed to carry a BRCA mutation that increases the risk of certain cancers.
A relative of her mother was once the youngest person in Guernsey to be diagnosed with breast cancer, at just 27.
Noting her family’s situation during a post-partum check in November 2019, Hammond’s doctor asked if she would like to be tested to see if she is a BRCA carrier.
Although Covid restrictions prevented her from travelling to be tested, she was treated as a carrier and entered a screening programme, leading to her own breast cancer diagnosis at 32.
She faced six months of chemotherapy, plus a double mastectomy and reconstruction, before being deemed cancer-free in early 2022.
‘I think sometimes, as people get older, their drive for things goes down. But I’ve realised, well, actually, I can do more and at this point of my life, I’m like “Ooh, what else can I do?”
Her plight did not escape the attention of the GBA family, who sent her flowers during her illness even though she had not been involved for years.
Hammond is very open about her experiences and continues to raise awareness, including documenting her recovery on public Instagram profile findingmyselfaftercancer.
‘From being sick, I never saw it as a death sentence.
‘When you mention the word “cancer”, everyone thinks death.
‘But I had a really positive mindset. And I think that’s helped me become very self-aware of who I am and what I can achieve.
‘I think sometimes, as people get older, their drive for things goes down.
‘But I’ve realised, well, actually, I can do more and at this point of my life, I’m like “Ooh, what else can I do?”
‘This whole Level Three thing, I’m like, “I can do that”.’
It was not until the year preceding Guernsey 2023 that Hammond got involved in basketball again.
She set her mind to volunteering at the home Games, just as the GBA started an initiative to train up new table officials, and soon found herself with a good group of like-minded people again.
‘We all did the Island Games and then that’s kind of how I got back into the basketball community and realised how much I missed it – how it’s such a nice, family-like community feeling.
‘Everyone’s really friendly most the time and it’s just there was such a shortage of refs and I thought I quite fancy giving it a go. I just absolutely love it.’
Since the 2023-24 season, the GBA have taken responsibility for providing referees and table officials for all games.
In the past, teams had to find their own volunteers to manage the table duties – such as the scorebook, game clock, and 24-second timer – but this is no longer the case.
As more qualified and capable officials came forward, the GBA established a dedicated pool of people to continue supporting teams at the table.
This ensures that games are staffed by experienced officials who bring consistency and professionalism.
The basketball stalwart is now looking at taking her officiating to the next level and is thankful to Roger Harrison, a former international FIBA referee with several Guernsey contacts.
He has invited her to partake in high-level referee training with Red Star Basketball Camps UK.
In partnership with EuroLeague giants Crvena Zvezda, Red Star offer three weeks’ worth of high-performance basketball camps in Leeds over the summer holidays. This includes a week-long camp for aspiring Level Three and Four referees.
‘Why not? I want to grow and experience another level of basketball to Guernsey.’
But she will already be gaining important experience next month, when she goes over to referee some high-level U18 matches in Derby.
‘I was chatting to Jai and he said, “You’ll enjoy it. When I did my level Three sign-off game I did a London U19. Best experience I’ve had – it’ll be an experience for you and you’ll see how slick they are over there compared to Guernsey”.’
If she does pursue a Level Three qualification, it would enable her to referee at future Island Games and give back to the sporting festival that provided her a career-defining medal.
But, she would be very excited simply to experience inter-insulars from a new angle.
‘I’d really like to ref an inter-insular game.
‘That’s something that would be quite cool, having played in them for so many years.’
Hammond is encouraging anyone interested in officiating to contact guernseybasketball@outlook.com.
