Essex Rebels Sign GB Guard Olivia Forster Ahead of 2025/26 Season

The Essex Rebels are pleased to welcome talented guard Olivia Forster to the roster ahead of the 2025/2026 Super League Basketball campaign. 

Forster spent last season with the South Carolina Upstate Spartans, competing in the Big South Conference, as part of the NCAA Division 1. She made twenty-five appearances there, helping her side reach the Quarter Finals of the Big South Championship.  

Despite spending her last campaign abroad in South Carolina, Forster is no stranger to the South East, having spent three years at Endeavour Ipswich Basketball in the Women’s Elite Academy Basketball League (WEABL). 

Forster enjoyed a successful spell in East Anglia, winning a WEABL national championship, finishing as a two-time runner-up, and being crowned WEABL South MVP in 2024.

Forster has also represented England at youth level from the under-fourteen to under-eighteen age groups, as well as Great Britain’s under-eighteen and under-twenty sides. 

Most recently, Forster competed in the FIBA EuroBasket Division B this summer for Great Britain’s under-twenty side, where she led her team in points, averaging an impressive sixteen points per game, whilst adding 4.7 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game.

Forster’s highlight of the competition came in Great Britain’s 82-33 victory over Malta, where she contributed with a 28-point haul.  

Essex Rebels Head Coach Ashley Cookson is excited for the gifted playmaker to join Essex:

“We’re thrilled to have Liv join the Rebels! She’s an exciting young British player with great potential, and we’re really looking forward to having her in Essex this season. Even though she’s still young, Liv has already built up some impressive experience — from winning the EABL with Ipswich, playing NCAA Division 1 with South Carolina Upstate, and most recently making a big impact with the GB U20s as their second-leading scorer this summer. She’s proven she can compete at a high level, and we can’t wait to see the impact she’ll make with the Rebels in the SLB.”

Olivia Forster is looking forward to her first season with the Rebels adding: 

“I am most looking forward to playing and becoming a part of the Rebels family, whilst enjoying and experiencing my first SLB season.”