Crystal Palace (basketball)
former team of the British Basketball League
Crystal Palace was a basketball team competing in the National Basketball League (NBL) and then the British Basketball League (BBL), until they merged with the London Towers in 1998. They played in the Crystal Palace Sports Centre and were the most successful team in Britain throughout the seventies and early eighties.
History
In 1966 the Old Suttonians basketball club was founded by several ex pupils of Sutton Grammar School including David Last and Terry Doherty who both performed the role of director of the club in future years. In 1972 the club entered the new National League as Sutton basketball club and finished third of six teams. the following season they relocated to Crystal Palace and became the Sutton & Crystal Palace club. Success arrived quickly with a league and cup double the very next season.
In 1975 the club dropped the Sutton prefix and gained sponsorship from Cinzano which helped propel them into being the best club in Britain. The team would go on to complete three consecutive doubles of National League and National Cup. The team became regarded as the pioneers of UK basketball and their early players included Jim Guymon, Martin Hall, Barry Huxley, Mark Saiers, Alan Baillie, Pete Jeremich and Paul Philp. An incredible treble ensued in the 79–80 season and other players to represent the club included players such as Dan Lloyd, Bob Roma, Paul Stimpson, Mick Bett and Alton Byrd, the latter considered the man who revolutionised basketball in Britain.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Crystal Palace (basketball)” is former team of the British Basketball League. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Crystal, Palace and basketball, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5191305. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998, 1966, 1972 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “Crystal Palace (basketball)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.