Panthers hope for quick return

Birmingham Panthers officials have promised to bring top class basketball back to Telford - and soon.

After two trial games in the county Panthers, who are considering a full time re-location to Telford for the start of the 2008-09 BBL campaign, are applying to the BBL to be allowed to play at least one additional “home” game at TCAT before the end of the season.

A bumper crowd in excess of 400 watched last weekend’s narrow defeat Plymouth Raiders following the previous week’s defeat to league leaders Newcastle Eagles.

Panthers Lataryl Williams, who hit a game high 23 points against Plymouth said: “As a player you need energy from your fans. We could all sense the passion for basketball within the crowd when we played Newcastle. But after we were blown out it would have been easy for the fans to have not returned.

“However, there was an even bigger crowd there last Saturday. The way the arena looked and the passion of the crowd, allied to the music, and the excellent cheerleaders led to there being a great Basketball atmosphere in the place being a great Basketball atmosphere.

“I can assure you that the Panthers would like to experience that atmosphere again in the next few weeks.”

Williams also had positive things to say about the performances of the two Shropshire youngsters - Josh Crutchley and Shaun Jones.

“Their first experiences of top level basketball have been against the league’s top two teams, and it doesn’t get much tougher than that,” he added.

“However, after seeing them in training and in the two games I can honestly say that they are not scared at all. I really admire them for that.”