FAB Flournoy believes that he has turned the most tragic event of his life into a force for good – as he urges his Newcastle Eagles to banish their hangovers and go into the New Year in rude form.

Flournoy and the rest of the Eagles players are recovering from the annual December 10 blow out that has become something of a club tradition over the years. It is the date that Flournoy’s inspirational older brother Jimmy was killed, and the only day that the Eagles head-coach drinks every year.

Although an emotional day for the New Yorker it also brings him and his players and coaching staff – whom he refers to as his “band of brothers” – closer together in a flurry of booze, bad dancing and baring their souls.

This year’s session was a slightly tamer affair – Flournoy ending up back at his own apartment rather than on the couch of assistant coach Dave Forrester with no phone or car keys and only one shoe, the fate that befell him last year.

But Flournoy was still able to reflect on an evening that gives him a sense of perspective every year.

“It is a tragic event but I think that it has been turned into something of a force for good in a way,” Flournoy said.

“Before my brother died I never really got the opportunity to tell him how much he meant to me, or to tell him that I loved him because I was busy at college.

“I don’t usually celebrate Christmas because of what happened but I do make sure that I take time to speak to everyone close to me, players on the team, backroom staff, ex-players. I think the night of December 10 has become well-known in British basketball now. One of the first things Andy Thomson said to me when he joined the club was ‘When is the drinking session then?’