Champions and The Week That Was

What a week; I can barely believe it has been a week.

First off, we won the league championship! We are the British Basketball League champions for 2007!

And this team did not even exist 2 years ago. Well, that's not exactly true--by American standards the franchise was moved, but in for the purposes of the UK, it's a brand new team. For the vast majority of the paying spectators, it's a brand new team. I doubt many of them had ever seen a pro game before the club pitched up there.

What really matters is that in our second season as the Guildford Heat, we have won both the league and the cup. There are teams in this league 30 years who've done neither, let alone both in the same year. For our coach, Paul James, it must be sweet. He deserves it.

British basketball was much bigger and not so long ago: it was on TV regularly and then, poof! Gone. TV money went away, fans disappeared and the rest is the present. If we can pick this up by its boot laces and bring it back and take it past where it has never been, well, then this will be a blog to remember.

The partying on the night after the game was fairly intense. The one thing going in everyone's favour at the Spectrum bar was that the game was a 3pm start and so if we were getting bladdered starting at 5.30, by 10pm it was really time to go, with no doubts. As it happens, by 10pm I found myself leaving with one of our sponsors and carried on a few more moments, but not many.

Incredibly, I was up at 0600 to get press releases out and get ready for the day. Easter Monday is a national holiday in the UK, but it wasn't going to be for me. I had to get to Brussels that very afternoon in order to make a meeting with the people from Euroleague Basketball: the biggest and most powerful commercial basketball league in the world after the NBA.

Without putting too fine a point on it, as British Basketball champions, we want to play in Europe now. In past years, the BBL league champions had an automatic invitation to play in one of the FIBA or ULEB competitions--but did they now? We didn't know. We had to go and have a look about.

As it happens, Tuesday was the ULEB Cup Final in Charleroi, Belgium. This was just a train-ride from Guildford and at a very late hour, I was given a VIP ticket by the folks in Barcelona (and a hotel reservation) and thus was on my way to Brussels.

I can't say I was hungover on the ride--I really wasn't. Not only wasn't I hungover, I had no clue on why I wasn't, but perhaps a good 6 hours of sleep was enough in the end. It was just the blood pumping that gave me clarity of mind. It gave me time to think and savour the victory. I didn't need the time to wonder about meeting Jordi Bertomeu--I didn't have a clue what the meeting would be like, but I had heard he was a very charming and reasonable man; what could go wrong? I had my agenda in place: simply let him know that Guildford was a fantastic city where European basketball could be played and where it had been played, B.C. (Before Collapse)

I just got off the phone with Bada up in Newcastle and he tells me he is sending me DVD copies of when the wayyyy B.C. Guildford Kings played against Real Madrid and Barcelona in our very own Guildford Spectrum. Early 1990's. I can't believe it. I'm going to have to see what on earth this was like. In our tiny 1,500 seat arena. Not even on the ice rink floor. To think we were there once; I will feel like an archeologist watching these puppies...

Brussels has improved remarkably in 10 years. It was dirty and crumbling 10 years ago and now, thanks to tons of graft and European Union tax money (including my own), it's scrubbing up nicely.

The Hotel Metropole looked like nothing from the outside, but was totally grand on the inside. I could easily see a bunch of German officers swanning about the place in the early '40's (and about 25 years before that as well).

I totally believe in the bid to bring basketball to the UK and blow it up. The UK is clearly the biggest western country not to have a massive interest in basketball. How this nation was bypassed is a semi-mystery, but not an entire one.

However, now that we have the 2012 Olympics coming, it's given many of us something to galvinize our efforts: to give us goals to shoot towards. We are light years from getting to something tangible, but there is the sense that something is going in the right direction now.

Some of it, no doubt, down to the little old Guildford Heat. Just a little bit outside of London and in a city starved of 'major', rather than 'minority', sports--we can be that link to the capital city and glitz that everyone wants to have. Winning helps make this possible, so we need to keep winning.

Being British champions also isn't enough. If there is another league we can play in, then we have to play in that league. We need to spread the word. With any luck, it will be the ULEB Cup competition, the second tier of top European basketball.

Can we do it? On the court, I know we can do it. We won't win it next year, but we will, as one of our front office says, "make sure everyone knew they played us and didn't want to see us too often". Year 2 we could be a bit better and Year 3 a bit better than that. By 2012, why shouldn't we be hoping to play in the Euroleague itself--maybe even with some of our games at Wembley Arena or in the new O2 Arena, where the NBA will play a game this fall?

The ULEB Cup is on TV here in the UK: that's a big deal. Our own domestic game has had 2 games broadcast this year, one of which included us. It's not enough. It will be easier (a bit) to get into the ULEB and see us on TV than trying to get a whole new TV deal.

But first, I had to talk to the CEO of the competition.

And I did.

The result? A charming man. Very nice bloke. I did what I came to do and that was simply let him know we existed. Which he did not previously. And that we were from Guildford. Which he had not heard of before. Or maybe just a little.

He certainly did like knowing we were 30 miles away from central London, rather than 300 miles away.

We spoke for an hour and I must admit it was truly a buzz to sit with the David Stern of Europe. I'm hopeful.

I left the meeting, got a quick dinner (a Chi-Chi's Mexican restaurant! I'm SAVED!) and went back to the room. Passed out but slept restlessly. Too much action on.

Tuesday wasn't much, a few hello's here and there, but the real fun was that afternoon and evening. The league laid on a bus and we left around 5pm to get to Charleroi.

The arena the game was to be played in was like no other I could have imagined before, and I've been in probably 100 or even 200 venues in my time. Easily. This one I still can't imagine how many really fit in it. It looked to me like 3,000 but I heard it was 5,000.

Regardless, it was like a mini-Queen Mary liner--someone had gutted this place and turned it into a VIP mini-arena. It was ace! The VIP cushioned seat (back and bottom) I was in could have accommodated a 300 pound dude's behind with total ease. I'm a good 220 and I was swimming in this. The court was no more than 15 rows away and it was just flat out gorgeous, but TINY.

Of course, I immediately repaired to the VIP area for some refueling. Free champers to start and thereafter all the food and wine you could ask for. And several people there could ask for quite a lot.

What was the game like? Forget the game, what was the crowd like! Real Madrid (the mighty) v Rytas of Vilnius Lithuania. I was hoping to see Arturas K., from my old alma mater, Seton Hall, but couldn't spot him. He might support the other team in town--if anyone knows, please tell me.

I was told there were 1,000 tickets sold to each side, who then had to travel the 700 miles or so each to Belgium. I can't be sure, but it was even. Even in terms of numbers and even in terms of noise.

As for the noise, let me say that for someone who grew up in Yankee Stadium and has gone to games all over the world, been to Old Trafford to see Manchester United, been to Real Madrid football in Madrid, nothing, nothing was ever this intensely loud in the room it was in. It was like the Beatles at Shea in '64. Or what we were told that sounded like anyway.

From my 15th row seat, I never heard the ball touch the floor and I never heard a referee's whistle. All I heard was screaming, cheering, horns, and chanting. It never stopped. It did slow once Rytas fell behind, but that only served to bring more out of the Real supporters.

Real won, and by about 10, but the game was not a blow out and you always knew that if they took their foot off the pedal, they would have been found out and had. The barrage of 3's they survived late was incredible.

I left that game more determined than ever to see the Guildford Heat play in European competitions. It was essential for the growth of the club and for the good of the British game. We had to be on the big stage. As long as the club financially could meet the challenge, it had to be pursued. If the ULEB granted a spot to the champions, how could it be denied?

How long would it take for us to win the league and cup again?

I had drinks with the players and some other BBL people after the game, took the bus back to Brussels and did what any self-respecting British resident would do when he got to the hotel: found a kebab shop to get a doner.

There wasn't a soul in this place, so I decided to eat it there. Incredibly, the guy behind the counter woke me from my funk and introduced me to his only other British customer that week--an employee from the Euroleague, Ed Scott. Good lad, we finished our kebabs and chips back at the 4 star hotel, talking basketball. Dreaming of bringing European basketball to the UK and to see the Great Britain team do well at the Olympics.

Earlier that evening I had met the coach of 'our' national team, Chris Finch, an American from PA. We had a very good chat. What a job he has. To put together a team of players to compete as Great Britain for the first time since 1948. I wish him nothing but the best.

I must declare an interest here: I took British citizenship in 2002 or 2003. Since then I've had the most bizarre career following national team sports. I support England and the US. It's crackers, but here we are.

It's essential for Great Britain to do well in basketball. It's important! If we can get all the players who COULD play for the UK to actually commit, well, we'd have a decent team. We've got Luol Deng and if we can take his teammate Ben Gordon; that would be a very nice start indeed!

Note to self: Now that the Knicks suck, I should remember to follow the Bulls! 2 British players and two Seton Hall players, what more can I ask for?!?

So Chris has a big job ahead of him. We've lots of qualifiers to go. He needs to call up one of our players, Mike Martin. Our captain. The man is incredible. He didn't start playing basketball until he was 21! He's 30 now, but can he do the job. A lion. Played several years in France and went to the Commonwealth Games in Australia in 2006 and came home with a bronze medal.

To say by Wednesday morning I was amped up would be the understatement of the year. However, I was bone tired. I think Ed and I chatted until 2am.

By noon I had had enough and since I couldn't attend any further meetings, wanted to switch my train ticket and head home.

I got home that evening at 6pm. I was shattered, but had had planned a BBQ with two of our players for weeks. By the time I got home there were 4 of them; our American contingent and Monique, my wife, had been promising them chicken parms galore.

It was good to be home and good to be part of something special.