A lot has been said about trying to turn Britain into one of the new powerhouses of European basketball and one team looking to put the island on the map is the London Lions. Now in its maiden season in the 7DAYS EuroCup, a competition that has not featured a British team since the Guildford Heat in 2007, London has lofty ambitions and has come a far way since its inception nearly a half-century ago.
Despite only having been known as the London Lions since 2012, the club was originally founded back in 1977 as the Hemel Hempstead Lakers, a reference to the legendary Los Angeles Lakers. Just like the Lakers, Hemel Hempstead played in purple and gold jerseys.
After entering the National Basketball League's Division 2 in 1977, the team finished with a 10-10 record, which was good enough for fifth place out of 11 teams. The following season, however, Hemel Hempstead came in second with a record of 15-3 and gained promotion to Division 1. In the elite of British basketball, the team made an immediate impression and became one of the forces in the league, finishing third in 1981 after losing out to Crystal Palace in the semifinals at Wembley Arena, 88-86.
A few years later, in 1985, the club's first name change would arrive, as the Hemel Hempstead Lakers converted into Hemel Royals. This period would see a number of very impressive American players hop across the pond to play for Hemel, including the likes of Dick Miller and Harvey Knuckles, who are still considered to be among the best players British basketball has ever seen.
During the 1989-90 season, Hemel took the decision to drop down to the British second division. Curiously, in this campaign, the team also featured in the Korac Cup, but it lost both at home and on the road (53-45, 60-65) in its first-round tie against KR from Reykjavik, Iceland. One year later, Hemel returned to the British first division, yet a 4-29 record in the 1992-93 season saw it drop down once again. However, for 1993-94, Hemel was reinstated to the top flight and therefore featured in the rebranded British Basketball League (BBL).
That salvation did not offer much in the way of success, though, as Hemel regularly finished in the bottom three in the BBL. Yet, with promotion and relegation no longer being a part of the league, Hemel retained its top-flight status.
Another change to the club name came in 1996 after years of failure on the court and a venue that was becoming more decrepit by the day. Suddenly, the Hemel & Watford Royals were born, with Watford Leisure Centre becoming the club's new home in 1997 after 20 years at the Dacorum Leisure Centre.
An upturn in results failed to arrive, however, with the Royals going 3-33 and finishing bottom of the 13-team league in 1997-98. Two years after the decision was made to relocate the team to Watford, although this only came to fruition one year later in 1997, negotiations were opened about moving the Royals once again, this time to Milton Keynes.
In 1998, the Watford Royals became the Milton Keynes Lions, following a commitment that a purpose-built arena would be built in Milton Keynes. Having had many years of pain in terms of results, things finally seemed to turn around just over 60 kilometers north in Milton Keynes.
By the time that the millennium came about, the Lions were up and running. The team managed to reach the semifinals of the National Cup in 2000, while that same year it booked its place in the playoffs for the first time in eight seasons.
Fast forward two years and Milton Keynes was into its first major final, as it took on the Chester Jets in the BBL Trophy. But, it came up short, losing 90-89. For the fans of the Lions, the important thing was that this competitiveness remained true in the following years, with the team regularly making the playoffs in the league. There was a semifinal appearance in the BBL Cup in 2005, too, but it lost out to the Brighton Bears, 78-68.
The arrival of the 2007-08 season marked a change for the Lions because owner Vince Macaulay-Razaq was appointed as the team's head coach. The club managed to bring in guard Yorick Williams in the offseason, which generated a lot of excitement, while there was also a rebrand, with the purple and gold jerseys of the past being changed for a black, gold and white look.
On the court, things went better than expected, as the Lions were one of the teams competing for the league title at Christmas. Then Milton Keynes won its first piece of silverware after downing the Newcastle Eagles 69-66 in the BBL Cup final. It entered the playoffs in the league as the fourth seed after having a record of 19-14 and it made its way all the way to the final, but the Guildford Heat took home the trophy, winning 100-88.
The success of the 2007-08 campaign was not matched in the subsequent seasons while growing uncertainty arose over the construction of the team's arena, which was part of why the team originally moved to Milton Keynes. The Lions failed to make the playoffs in the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons and, having played in three different arenas in as many years, the team moved to London, where it took on the name of the London Lions. In London, the team would wear the purple and gold uniforms of the past.
