Surrey Scorchers

Surrey Scorchers is a basketball club based in Guildford, Surrey that currently competes in the British Basketball League. The team play its home games at the Surrey Sports Park.

The franchise was formed in 2005 as the Guildford Heat by fans of former BBL team Thames Valley Tigers, who folded during the same year. The club enjoyed plenty of success in their early history, even appearing in the ULEB Cup in 2007, but have since fallen on hard times and in 2012 the franchise was rebranded as Surrey Heat. Following the sale of the club by former owner Alison Reeve, the club was rebranded again as Surrey United in September 2013. From June 2015, the franchise was wholly owned by Surrey Sports Park and based full-time at the University of Surrey-owned facility. The franchise was rebranded as "Surrey Scorchers".

Franchise history

Basketball in Guildford

The town of Guildford has been home to several elite basketball teams down the years. With the opening of the Guildford Spectrum, the successful Kingston team uprooted, moved in and renamed themselves as the Guildford Kings in 1992, briefly calling the place home until they folded in 1994, as did the Guildford Pumas before they relocated to Sutton in 1999. However it was the first major team, the Guildford Pirates who played in the town from 1975 to 1982 that would come back to figure prominently in the birth of the new club, the Guildford Heat.

Guildford

Coordinates: 51°14′11″N 0°34′13″W / 51.2365°N 0.5703°W / 51.2365; -0.5703

Guildford ⁱ/ˈɡɪlfərd/ is the historic county town of Surrey, England and the seat of the borough of Guildford. The town is 27 miles (43 km) southwest of central London on the A3 trunk road mid-way between the capital and Portsmouth.

Guildford has Saxon roots and historians attribute its location to the existence of a gap in the North Downs where the River Wey was forded by the Harrow Way By AD 978 it was home to an early English Royal Mint. On the building of the Wey Navigation and Basingstoke Canal Guildford was connected to a network of waterways that aided its prosperity. In the 20th century, the University of Surrey and Guildford Cathedral, an Anglican cathedral, were added.

Due to recent development running north from Guildford, and linking to the Woking area, Guildford now officially forms the southwestern tip of the Greater London Built-up Area, as defined by the Office for National Statistics.

History

Borough of Guildford

Coordinates: 51°14′46″N 0°33′07″W / 51.246°N 0.552°W / 51.246; -0.552

The Borough of Guildford is a local government district with borough status in Surrey, England. Guildford is its largest settlement, only town and is the location of the council.

The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972 by an amalgamation of the municipal borough of Guildford and Guildford Rural District.

Functions

Borough councillors and officers work on devolved issues such as parks, leisure, older residents' services, youth services, streetscene, refuse collection, planning and aspects of business and tourism;Surrey County Council deal with transport, publicly owned infrastructure planning and maintenance, education, social services and overall waste management. The Borough owns significant heritage assets that include monuments such as Guildford Castle, as well museums, art collections and civic regalia.

Population

Guildford has the second largest population of Surrey's eleven districts (based on census statistics, only 600 residents behind Reigate and Banstead). Approximately half of the Borough’s population live in the town of Guildford.

Guildford (UK Parliament constituency)

Coordinates: 51°14′46″N 0°33′07″W / 51.246°N 0.552°W / 51.246; -0.552

Guildford is a constituency in Surrey represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Anne Milton, a Conservative.

History

From the first Commons in the Model Parliament of 1295 Guildford was a parliamentary borough sending two members to Parliament until 1868 and one until 1885. In the latter years of sending two members a bloc vote system of elections was used.

Before 1885 the constituency covered the town of Guildford only. The parliamentary borough was abolished under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 however replaced by a new type of seat, named, Guildford (a county division of Surrey) which covered a much wider geographical area.

Boundaries

The constituency covers Guildford and the surrounding area in the county of Surrey. After the decision of the Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies which reported for the 2010 general election, the electoral wards had electoral wards: