AFTER a season without silverware many people suggested Newcastle Eagles’ domination of British Basketball had come to an end.

It had been almost a decade of endless championship titles, cup finals and play-off victories before the Eagles finished the 2012-13 season without adding to their trophy-laden cabinet.

Like they had done when Flournoy first arrived, when he first took over as player-coach, and after that unforgettable clean sweep in 2005-6, the critics were quick to have their say.

While different teams have had to endure various jibes, Flournoy has been an ever-present and had to deal with them all. They said a team would never succeed under a player-coach, they insisted the quadruple-winning season was a fluke, and most recently, they accused the Eagles, and more specifically Flournoy and Charles Smith, as being “too old”.

At 40 and 38-years-old respectively, the pair have once again proved people wrong, and for Flournoy in particular their latest championship win once again offers their critics a stark warning: write us off at your peril.

“When I first got here everyone questioned whether we could win with a player/coach and that it hasn’t been done and it can’t be done,” Flournoy explained. “It took about three years for that to happen. Then people questioned whether it was a fluke.

“Then they questioned whether we would win past that era. What I can’t accept and is being considered as ‘old’ and ‘past it’ and that our time was done.

“This one (title) is very sweet and I’m very proud in different ways. This was sweet because of all the talk that surrounded us. All the question marks over whether we were still good enough. We were deemed as not being good enough, as being poor, and I understand because we are known for being very successful.”

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There were early season defeats to Plymouth Raiders, Cheshire Pheonix and Sheffield Sharks that may have drawn an “I told you so” from those who had written off the Eagles’ chances, and then they fell at their first chance to prove people wrong when they lost to reigning BBL champions Leicester Riders in the BBL Cup final in January.

The defeat at Birmingham’s NIA came despite the Eagles leading the game right up until the last few minutes, but while he insists there wasn’t a specific turning point in the season, Flournoy believes his players simply learned from their mistakes.

He said: “The league has been the toughest and the most competitive. There was no foregone conclusion.

“We were written off and I don’t like being written off. Every time we have been written off we have come back stronger. It drives us and makes us even hungrier to succeed.

“I knew from day one this team could win it. There was no shadow of a doubt this team could win, the only thing I couldn’t predict was when we would win it.

“We still couldn’t get over the line in the BBL Cup final. No disrespect to Leicester, but I don’t think they necessarily beat us, I think we lost the game.

“That’s a learning curve. We all knew we did something wrong. We had to accept it and move on because we still had plenty to come.

“We lost a few games late on and then we lost on the buzzer to Sheffield. At that point we learned our lessons of how to win games.

“People saw us scraping through games, but really we had just learned how to close the game out and see it through to the end. At the start of the season we didn’t know how. Once we got that we were confident and we were never frustrated whether it was by one point or by ten points.”

The Eagles’ latest success only reaffirms Flournoy’s position as arguably the most successful coach in top-level North-East sport, but the 40-year-old prefers not to look into personal accolades.

“I don’t look at it and I don’t compare myself to others. I don’t do it for the accolades, I do it for my club, my city, my region and more importantly for the sport. I consider myself one of the people and if I can make it you can make it.”