The Brighton Cougars are an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

club from the city of

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

. The Cougars play at Dorothy Stringer School and attract a broad-based membership of boys and girls from five years old through to adult men and women.

History

Established in 1989, the club was founded to offer sessions to develop and improve basketball skills and techniques within the local community, and entered senior teams to compete in the local Sussex League and junior teams in local age-group leagues. Ten years after their founding, the club made a move into the National League, where they competed for five seasons from 1999 to 2004. Despite some strong performances and two appearances in the playoffs, the club never made it beyond the lower reaches of the league, and financial concerns led the club to drop out of national competition after the 2003-2004 season, returning to the local Sussex League. The club came to wider prominence when they applied to join the professional

British Basketball League The British Basketball League (BBL) is a men's professional basketball league in Great Britain and represents the highest level of play in the countries. The league is contested by 10 teams from England and Scotland. There are no clubs howeve ...

in 2007. The club aimed to compete in Britain's top-tier league in the 2008-09 season, and would have occupied the spot vacated by Brighton's former professional basketball franchise the

Brighton Bears Brighton Bears was a British basketball team based in Brighton, Sussex. From 1984 to 1999 the club was known as the Worthing Bears and was based in the town of Worthing, 12 miles west of Brighton. The Bears played in the top-flight British Ba ...

, which folded in 2006. However the application was turned down in favour of

Worthing Thunder The Worthing Thunder are an English professional basketball team based in Worthing, West Sussex. The Thunder compete in the National Basketball League (NBL). Founded in 1999 as the Worthing Rebels after the Worthing Bears had relocated to Bri ...

, a local rival team. After their unsuccessful application, the Cougars made a brief return to the National League, but dropped out of Division Four Midlands South after a single disappointing season saw them finish second-from-bottom. The Cougars returned once again to the Sussex League for several years, building their fanbase and their reach within the community. In 2014, the decision was taken to re-launch the National League team, in order to offer junior players a further outlet to progress. An application was made and accepted to join the

English Basketball League The National Basketball League, or NBL for short, is a league competition representing semi-professional and amateur basketball clubs from England and Wales. It forms levels 2 to 4 on the British basketball pyramid, in line with the Scottish B ...

in the 2014-15 season, which led to the club being awarded a place in Division 4 (South East). The team's first season back in the league ended in a respectable 5th place finish, finishing only two wins short of a place in the playoffs.

History

Season-by-season records

See also

References

External links