By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
The city of London will be represented in European basketball for the first time since the beginning of the century, with the London Lions entering the Basketball Champions League Qualification Rounds for the 2020-21 season.
Lions head coach Vince Macaulay spoke to championsleague.basketball about the Lions’ journey to reach the BCL Qualification Rounds and how consistent European basketball in London could help the game grow in the country.
Per championsleague.basketball:
The London Lions were founded in 1977 but originally in Hemel Hempstead. Since then the club has found homes in Watford and Milton Keynes, before finally settling at the Copper Box in the Olympic Park, Hackney Wick. This move has propelled the progress of the club to the point where they are now able to enter the BCL and a new ownership group has brought the type of investment the club hopes will bring the ability to be not only sustainable but hopefully competitive. Playing home games in an Olympic caliber venue has clearly been beneficial but also came with some challenges that needed to be met.
“Moving into London, we knew that although this is one of the bigger cities in the world, it was also a city that hadn’t had a basketball team for a long time. We were also moving into a 6,500 seater venue, starting from scratch,” said Macaulay.
Macaulay is a long-time stalwart of British Basketball. After starting as a player, he has since fulfilled roles as a coach and owner for the Lions, even standing as a Chairman of the British Basketball League (BBL) for a short period. Despite only moving the club to London recently, European basketball has always been one of the primary objectives. The foundations needed to be laid first.
“Our first goals were to be embraced by the community in the first three to four years, to be challenging for honors within the first three to four years, and to be champions and challenging to enter Europe within a period of five to seven years. At times it has been a difficult and painful journey but – after moving to London in 2013 – this is where we are now,” recounted Macaulay.
For Macaulay, it was also vital that the team’s new investors shared the understanding of how important the consistent presence of a London team in Europe is to the entire country.
“Our new investors feel the same way as everyone else, that they look at British basketball and wonder why is it not as big as the other countries in Europe. They look at the speed that the German BBL has grown and thought what is the reason British basketball hasn’t been able to do that.”
“The truth is that the playing population in the U.K – as you go down through the age groups – isn’t less talented than France for example. If we can build a successful team from London in Europe, hopefully, we can put some pressure on in the right places and impact change. First, we need to become a steady, consistent, European team,” Macaulay said.
If there were to be a city in the U.K where basketball could really take off, London would be a prime candidate. London is one of the most diverse cities in the world, not just in demographics but also in the diversity of interests.
“We have so many nationalities that make up this beautiful, multi-cultural city we have in London. If we look at some of the clubs in the BCL, we are very excited that all of the work we have done to push this club forward means we could be matching up against these kinds of teams.
“Just to imagine bringing a team from (for example) Israel, Greece, or Lithuania to London on Wednesday night, with the place jumping and two teams battling it out. Then to think one of those teams is a London team representing, with British players that come from less than a mile away, this is an amazing thing for British Basketball. Maybe these are the things we need to do for that culture of basketball to seep into everyone,” said Macaulay.