30th June 2007, Venice, Italy.
Guildford Heat Basketball Club has pulled a rabbit out of the ULEB Cup
with a mouthwatering basketball feast of a draw for their first
European campaign. The Surrey side was drawn against clubs from
nations straight across Europe on Saturday afternoon in Jesolo, a
suburb of Venice.
The Heat were drawn against DKV Joventut of the Spanish ACB league,
often described as the second best league in the world; Alba Berlin of
the German Bundesliga; Turk Telekom Sports Club from Ankara, Turkey;
KK =C5=A0iauliai of Lithuania and, intriguingly, KK Bosna of Sarajevo in
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The draw was attended by the Heat=E2=80=99s Phil Hardy, the club=E2=80=99s
=
Marketing
Director, who had this to say from Venice: =E2=80=9CAs a fan and marketer
I
couldn=E2=80=99t have asked for a better draw. I am quite a fan of the
Span=
ish
ACB and watched DKV Joventut on television all winter and spring. To
know our club will be facing them in action is something I could
hardly have imagined possible, but now I can=E2=80=99t wait. Basketball
purists from around Britain will want to come and see this squad. I=E2=80=
=99m
equally happy to have drawn Lithuanian and Turkish sides as I know how
passionate those nations regard their basketball and I=E2=80=99m expecting
a
rather large demand for tickets from their large expatriate
communities in the southeast. Ditto from the Serbo-Croatian Bosnian
community. From a traveling perspective this is also a very good draw:
I know our supporters wanted to be able to travel to see a game or two
and really now they can be sure of it rather easily as all of these
places are served by low-cost airlines, apart from possibly
Sarajevo.=E2=80=9D
>From an on court perspective Coach Paul James added, =E2=80=9CI=E2=80=99m
s=
till trying
to wake up from last season and now this? Learning we are going to be
playing a top Spanish side will be a challenge both the players and I
will absolutely relish. These are great cities and I like to think we
will really fancy our chances against some of these teams. Every week
seems to bring more excitement and good news to this basketball club;
every resident of Guildford and Surrey should be pinching themselves
right now.=E2=80=9D
The Heat organisation now look forward to the task of speaking with
both local and national business leaders in order to secure key
sponsorship that will allow them to fly the flag for Guildford, Surrey
and Britain. =E2=80=9CThis is a very high profile competition across
Europe.
Television coverage of basketball on Eurosport [the 24 hours sports
network] is watched avidly by millions, we know there are both local
and national companies that will want to benefit by being proactive in
support of their community and country. To be honest, I am sure we
will offer significant value for money compared to the sponsorship
required to fund European competition in any other sport of this
importance.=E2=80=9D
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