Slipped onto the BBL website are two news items which confirm what has been suspected for a long while - that the London Towers and Brighton Bears are joining Birmingham Bullets in taking a year out from the League. In line with the way things have been going this summer, neither of these items (dated 28th and 31st July) seem to have been sent out on the full media circulation ... this tends to be reserved for good news! However, as contributors to the "What's Bev ..." website have been aware for some time, the pointers have all been there for quite a while. In the case of Towers, for instance, the club's website announced, on 6th July, that "Season tickets for 2006-7 are not currently available for purchase" and that "Season ticket holders should gain entry using last season's tickets and Rick will be talking to everybody at that first game." Later, on 27th August, they announced their home game schedule ... of 12 games, which was clearly not a full BBL programme. The club is clearly hopeful that many of their fans will continue to turn up, to watch the "reserve" team who are playing in EBL Division 3. We're quite used to basketball succeeding in shooting itself in the foot, but three times in one close-season ... ? With most of the summer's rumours now confirmed, we're just waiting for official confirmation that London United have made the switch from EBL to BBL. I suspect that that news was being held back until Towers had confirmed their status (or lack of it).
|
|