Another weekend, another two games. We headed to Leicester today for what is now our last BBL Trophy pool game.

The reason it is our last game is that sadly, my former club Manchester Giants have ceased operations citing financial difficulties. The Giants have been around for a long time and I was involved in possibly the greatest game of basketball ever played in England there a few years back. I was coaching the Giants at the time and we met the Sheffield Sharks on Good Friday in the last day of the regular season. Both teams had records of 30-5 and this game was for all the marbles. A crowd of 12,000 turned up to watch the game go down to the very final play as the Sharks hit a shot at the buzzer to claim the title. That was not long ago as it ended the 1998 season.

As I am one of the directors of our club I was aware of all the dealings going on because the BBL (British Basketball League) had called an emergency meeting last week to discuss the Giants situation. I want to make one thing clear: The reason the Manchester Giants are no more was a personal and political situation. I shall say no more.

The results of this affect us greatly. We hadn't played the Giants yet so none of our results were affected. Many in the league were however. We have now qualified for the quarter-finals of the BBL Trophy having won three games and lost one in our pool. But we had two home dates scheduled at the Brighton Centre, which we now have to look at. We were due to play on December 18 and on March 24. The March 24 game will now be against the Edinburgh Rocks with the time to be confirmed. The December 18 game will be lost I am afraid.

On Thursday night, Bob Hoad from Southern FM, kindly invited Randy Duck, Sterling Davis, and myself to the Sussex Awards. Randy and Sterling presented an award to DJ Pied Piper. That was pretty cool. At my table, I sat next to Chris Adams, the captain of Sussex County Cricket Club, and his wife Sam. Nice people who will be coming to our big game on December 16 at the Brighton Centre. There were many highlights on the night but my biggest thrill came when Sophie Ellis Baxter sang a couple of her hits. I think she is beautiful and I like her songs and I didn't know she would be there. I also met Bobby Zamora, who was also very nice and seemed cool for being so young and such a big star.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I really like getting to know some of the people around Brighton. It is nice to be part of such a vibrant community. I hope to be here for a long time as we take the Bears to new heights and give this city anther sporting team to be proud of.

Next Sunday's game with Thames Valley is being shown live on Meridian, and could be a sell out. Get your tickets now and see the biggest game of the year. See you all next week and GO BEARS.