Robert Chappell, the former basketball coach at Epsom College has been awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the New Year 2019 Honours List. The BEM is a British medal awarded for meritorious civil or military service of recognition by the crown. Whilst at Epsom, Mr Chappell guided the basketball team to two County league championships and two County cup finals.
Most recently he has been team manager of the England senior men’s basketball team, but his basketball career has also included being team manager of the Great Britain basketball team at six World University Games, and the team manager of the England U18 team at four European Championships. Many coaching courses ran by him over a 25 year period led to the development of UK coaches/basketball officials.
At present, he is chair and administrator of Surrey Schools Basketball which necessitates organising competitions for approximately thirty schools including Epsom.