CELEBRITY FANS: ANNA NOLAN - Journalist and Broadcaster, 39, Basketball

When did you get into basketball?I started playing in my first year in secondary school. I went to Loreto College in Crumlin and there was an excellent coach there, Gemma Kelly. I became absolutely addicted.

I’d arrive home from school, have my tea, and go back out and play for two or three hours.

I remember in first year thinking, I know I’m not going to be good this year. My coach was very committed to technique, so I knew I had to practice, practice, practice. It didn’t matter that I didn’t score or that I was making the most lay-ups, it was just important that I got the shooting technique right.

I slept on a bunk-bed – on the lower bunk-bed – and I’d write on a piece of paper how I’d done in basketball that day and put the piece of paper in between the wire springs that ran underneath the top bunk, and would go to bed each night reading how badly or how well I’d done that day.

It became all-consuming.

What made it so compelling?At that time, in the 1980s, it was becoming massive. It was a team sport that women could really get involved in, and it was a classless sport. Hockey and tennis were middle-class sports.

Basketball really worked in working-class communities.

And it wasn’t connected to the GAA, with all its associations, so it was a new, exciting sport to play.

Also in the ’80s, the Americans came over. They brought glamour. It was like we were seeing a little bit of America in our local courts in Inchicore or in Neptune in Cork. I remember LaVerne Evans came over to play with Roadspeed, the men’s team. We hadn’t seen a black American player. Ever.

Everything about him – the way he walked, the way he talked. The whole of the Irish basketball world thought that he was a god.

What standard did you reach?The highlight of my short basketball career was in 1988. I played in the national club finals for under-19s down in Cork. We won that and I got MVP. That week, the senior Naomh Mhuire women were in the final and I was subbed up to play in that match and I scored in that match as well.

And then very soon afterwards, I gave it up.

Why?I remember. I hadn't been chosen for the Irish team the year before and I was absolutely devastated. Also, from 13 to 18, every waking second of my day was filled with basketball, and I just think that I was burnt out.

But you've got back on the horse?Yes. After a gap of 20 years, I've joined Meteors' Masters team, and it is incredibly rewarding and intensely frustrating, because I'm trying to get back to a level that I know I'll never get back to.

Every time I come home from a training session I’m beating myself up – Why didn’t I do this? Why didn’t I do that? It’s the same approach I’ve always had, just that the limbs are moving a bit slower and the brain is taking a little bit longer to decide what sort of move to do.

Is basketball a non-contact sport?No. I got an elbow in my face last night playing a match. If you have the ball, you can do what you like. If you've somebody moving with you, you have the right to go into them and they're fouling you. With rebounds, there's a lot of contact.

When you’re marking off-the- ball, there are elbows and pushing and a lot of aggression.

What's frustrating about basketball?Everybody has bad games in sport, but in basketball if you're not scoring it's really, really noticed. Everybody has to put the points in. Because if there's pressure on one player, there's going to be another free, and it's up to them to convert the points.

At the moment, I’m working on my defence and fitness, but there’s a lot of air-balls going up, and I find that deeply frustrating . . . but that’ll come back again.

What's the strangest thing you've seen on a court?I made a documentary in RTÉ about my time in religious life. There was a clip in it of me playing basketball in one of these finals. It shows me getting really angry because the referee had made a bad call.

I was surprised looking back on that to see what a narky, grumpy player I was. I thought I was very laid-back and chilled on the court, but there was a real flash of aggression in my eyes – but it was the ref’s wrong call and I still stand by it today!

In conversation with Richard Fitzpatrick