Birmingham Bullets
Encyclopedia
The Birmingham Bullets is a basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 team from Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, who competed in the British Basketball League
British Basketball League
The British Basketball League, often abbreviated to the BBL, is the premier men's professional basketball league in the United Kingdom. The BBL runs two knockout competitions alongside the league championship; the BBL Cup and the BBL Trophy....

 (BBL). The club resigned from the BBL league in the summer of 2006 and soon after went into liquidation
Liquidation
In law, liquidation is the process by which a company is brought to an end, and the assets and property of the company redistributed. Liquidation is also sometimes referred to as winding-up or dissolution, although dissolution technically refers to the last stage of liquidation...

, and currently no-longer exist as a basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 franchise.

The future of Birmingham basketball

Birmingham Bullets came to an end in 2006. An attempt by Team Birmingham to claim their history was generally ignored, and the name "Bullets" was never registered by them with England Basketball. The club struggled in Division Four, and in their two year existence they only won one game - a walkover against MK Lions II. They finished joint bottom of the midlands division in 2010/11, failing to fulfill four of their 14 games, and are not included in the published constitution for 2011/12.

With Worcester Wolves stepping up to replace the Birmingham franchise in the BBL in 2006, many former Bullets fans have adopted the Wolves as their new team, but basketball's future in the Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...

 took a turn for the better early in 2007. The British Basketball Association
British Basketball Association
The British Basketball Association, or BBA for short, is a proposed professional basketball league in the United Kingdom.The league is backed by a group of American and UK investors and advisers, some of which include former NBA players A. C. Green and John Amaechi, technology entrepreneur Ken...

, a proposed professional league set to rival the BBL, announced Birmingham Athletics
Birmingham Athletics
Birmingham Athletics, formerly called and often still referred to as Aston Athletics, is a basketball team based in Birmingham, England.The club was founded in 2004, as Aston Athletics, to play at the Aston Events Centre, which had just been vacated by Birmingham Bullets...

 as their second franchise for the 2007-08 season, on February 19, while a month later on March 23, the BBL announced that a new franchise had been awarded to Birmingham, also for the 2007-08 season
British Basketball League 2007-08
The 2007-08 season, the 21st since the establishment of the British Basketball League, commenced on September 9, 2007, when the Plymouth Raiders succumbed to the Guildford Heat in the inaugural Cup Winners' Cup competition...

, called Birmingham Panthers
Birmingham Panthers
The Birmingham Panthers was a professional basketball club in the British Basketball League. Established in 2007, the Birmingham-based franchise competed in Britain's top-tier league during the 2007-08 season, but following a disastrous season and a lack of organisation, the franchise ceased...

. The Panthers only lasted for one season before folding, and there is currently no team from Birmingham in the top two levels of basketball in England.

The new Academy

Team Birmingham have opened a regional headquarters at Northwood Stadium in Stoke-on-Trent.
Northwood Stadium is the only athletics centre in the area which is certified by the International Amateur Athletics Federation and is the home of Stoke Athletics Club. The centre also has a large sports hall with, 6 badminton courts, four full sized basketball courts, three 5-a-side football pitches, three squash courts and the facility for many other sports. Also based at Northwood is the full time training program for gap year students and full time players.

Housed within the brand new, £60 million campus at Knutton Lane the Academy offers state-of-the-art facilities, including a 4-court Sports Hall, Dance Studio and Fitness Suite for all its players. Other features include an impressive 250-seat auditorium, a large, well-equipped learning resources centre, a skills and technology centre and a suite of conference and seminar facilities.
Players attending the Academy will enrol on a full time, non-sports related course, train for sixteen hours on court, six hours in the Fitness Suite on strength and conditioning per week.
The players will also be available to play in the BCS and ESSBA competitions during the week and Senior Mens National League at weekends.

No culture shock

The academy program has been designed to the same standards as a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) College or University in the USA. It's hoped that players that attend the Bullets Academy will be able to adjust to life in the States seamlessly and without the culture shock that players can suffer. "When I started out on my vision to have a full time academy, many people said it couldn't be done," said Bullets' chairman and head coach Des Williams. "But here we are in one of the best facilities in the Midlands with a full time program that's all about development and raising the standard of players that will compete for their country."

External links

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