Kingston Wildcats
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Kingston Wildcats | |||||||||||||||||||
| League | Surrey League | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Established | 1983 | ||||||||||||||||||
| History | Tolworth Reckers - 1983 to 1992 Chessington Wildcats - 1993 to 1998 Kingston Wildcats 1998 to Date |
||||||||||||||||||
| Arena | Chessington Sports Centre (Capacity: 200) |
||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Kingston upon Thames, Surrey | ||||||||||||||||||
| Head Coach | Chris Howell / Phil Gunner / Tanya Corry (10th year) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Ownership | Members Club | ||||||||||||||||||
| Colours | Aqua, Blue and Orange
|
||||||||||||||||||
| Uniforms | |||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
Kingston Wildcats are a basketball team from Kingston, who competed in the English Basketball League Men's leagues. They now compete in the Surrey League. The team was founded in 1983 and played as Tolworth Reckers in the Surrey League until 1994 when as Chessington Wildcats they moved up to the regional NBL Division Three South. In 1996 they were promoted to the national NBL Division 2.
The team changed their name to Kingston Wildcats in an attempt to improve it's profile in 1998 and this coupled with some shrewd recruiting culminated in winning the Division Two Play off final at Wembley beating the highly fancied Manchester Magic. An automatic place in Division One was initially denied due to the capacity at Chessington Sports Centre being below the 500 stipulated for the division.
In 2000 to take their place in Division One they moved to Tolworth Recreation Centre. TRC had hosted top flight basketball in the 70's and 80's when Kingston Kings were one of the best teams in the country, however a large investment by both Kingston Council and Kingston Wildcats was required to get the centre's equipment up to the required standard.
In 2003 following issues with TRC the team were forced to move again, this time to Kingston College Arena. The team played here for three seasons before financial difficulties forced their withdrawal from the EBL.
