BBP: Surrey United: "One of our strengths is United's past"

Surrey United - previously Surrey Heat - have gone through multiple changes this summer, including a change of owner, name, coach and various players.

The 2012/13 season was largely a success with the team finishing in fourth place and getting to the play-off semi-finals.

Now a new man is in charge; Jack Majewski, who was part of London United's BBL exploits which are confined to recent history.

He is keen to dispel any fears that Surrey's stay in the BBL may be shortened by the takeover and thinks the future can be bright.

He said: "I don't believe in a program which isn't run on integrity and financial transparency and at London United we were misled that the borough would pump money into basketball and we are paid for our mistakes."

"The main difference between then and now will be stability, we will use local young players and we can use Surrey Sports Park and Surrey University as a base, so players can come in for three years."

"We want to be competitive on the court, to embrace and galvanise the existing fan base, we want to expose young players to the BBL, if you're good enough, you're old enough."

"Thanks to our expansion of our academy we can bring new and exciting player from all over Europe - we've also had interest from players in America."

Majewski believes that the takeover was necessary for the future of the club and to make sure it stayed in business.

He continued: "We spoke to the previous owner and they said if we didn't takeover the club it would cease to exist, it needed the takeover."

"I have one regret in the departure of Creon as coach and that is how it was done, I called Creon to apologise and I would like to publicly apologise for the way he was dismissed."

"We appreciate what he was doing, but we are not able to fund full-time coaches, I don't believe it is a good financially model to fund a full squad of full-time players and staff."

"We changed the name from Surrey Heat to Surrey United as it shows a connection with London United and underlines the fact we need unity in English basketball - we need to be a strong, united club."

"One thing that is beyond me is the fact teams from smaller countries with less talent can play in Europe but no British teams do."

For ticket to see Surrey United click HERE.

Surrey United will be appearing in the first game on BBL TV away at Glasgow on October 6th - click HERE for more info.