Flyers will help make “fantastic combination” for Bristol sport

With the announcement that EBL1 side, Bristol Flyers, will be stepping up into the highest tier of British basketball next season, the man who, within the Bristol community, is seen as being a champion for sport and putting the city on the sporting map, explained his own reasons for wanting to get involved.

Speaking in an interview this afternoon with BBC Radio Bristol, businessman Steve Lansdown, who created Bristol Sport Ltd. to bring together his interests in Bristol City FC and Bristol Rugby, feels there is great potential in adding the Flyers to his local sporting stable.

“The Flyers, with basketball, was just one of those opportunities where we can help put something into basketball here in Bristol,” the majority shareholder in Bristol City began by saying. “We can help develop a first class franchise, to go out on a national scale and increase the profile of Bristol sport.

“It gives us a third string to our bow with rugby, football and basketball; it will be a fantastic combination,” hopes Lansdown, who recently brought in a raft of changes to transfer policy at Bristol City by focusing on recruiting young talent in order to balance the books at the club who finished bottom of the npower Championship last month.

However, the positivity to drive the sport, team and city forward is absolutely clear, and to change perceptions is a keen goal: “Let’s be honest, Bristol and sport do not necessarily go together as natural bedfellows, and I think that’s a shame really because I know from having lived in this city for many, many years that there’s an awful lot of people keen on sport, follow sport all over the place, but when they look at Bristol, they think “There’s nothing happening here”.

“I’d like to see it happen here, it’s a sort of passion, if you like, to say that Bristol is a hotbed of sport, let’s get in to basketball and let’s make the most of it.”