Even though I don’t particularly have any love for the famous American sports, I do seem to attend a few basketball and baseball games every year. I’ve even been to a couple of American football matches in the last few years, so I guess I have developed something of a taste for such sporting occasions.

As soon as I’d decided to go back to the UK last Christmas I began to check the sporting calendar for local teams. Once I’d checked the Leicester City and Leicester Tigers matches taking place over the festive period, I set my sights on the city’s basketball team as I had never seen them play.

Thankfully they had a couple of home games on December 28th and 30th which didn’t clash with anything else, so I opted for the latter. That was actually the first sports ticket I booked as the football and rugby ones were still yet to go on sale. On the day of the match, I actually shot a few hoops down the local park with my nephew who is a keen basketball player.

He shoots …… he scores!

It would’ve been good to take him with me, but I only had one ticket, and my sister told me that he only liked playing the game which I guess is fairly common for his age. I used the visit to Leicester as an excuse to go a little earlier so I could try some Japanese food at Maki & Ramen restaurant. The service was so slow there that I had to absolutely wolf it down in order to get to Mattioli Arena in time for the tip-off at 7:00 pm.

It’s located about 30 minutes on foot from Leicester Railway Station but annoyingly Google Maps took me to the wrong part of the arena, so I had to backtrack and go to the other side which took a few extra precious minutes. I was then quite surprised to see a queue of people waiting to get in whilst an orchestra was playing some upbeat music. I pretty much entered the court area at the very moment the match began.

The last decade and a half has been fairly successful for the Riders with multiple British Basketball League (BBL) titles, Play-off victories and BBL Trophy successes to their name.

As ever with this sport it was really fast paced and end to end with points being scored very often. It was difficult for me to keep up although the time-outs and breaks did offer some respite for everyone.

The atmosphere was noisy but rather fabricated with a hype man on the PA system chanting “deee-fence” whenever Bristol were on the attack. The entertainment in between quarters included the same band I’d heard outside pre-game and a load of kids throwing plastic ducks into the middle of something, and I think the one who got the closest to the centre maybe won a prize.

Overall, Leicester were slightly more clinical with their shooting, particularly the 3-pointers from outside the penalty area.

As someone who is proud to come from Leicester, I will always claim to support any sports team from the city, but it means a bit more now I’ve finally seen the city’s basketball team play.

Final Score: Leicester Riders 85 -73 Bristol Flyers

Bonus: Nearly three months later and I went to my first basketball game of the year in Japan. It was a second division game between Yokohama Excellence and Fukui Blowinds at Buntai Yokohama, an arena I’d never been to before.

The main reason for going to this one was that I got a couple of free tickets for the game but couldn’t find anyone to join me so went alone on a rainy Japanese national holiday. I thought the tip-off was at 5:30 pm and that the game was taking place at Yokohama Budokan so was quite surprised when I checked the details on my way to Japan’s second largest city. I discovered it was at Buntai and starting at 5:05 pm!

Having arrived just as it started, I looked for a vacant seat but just could not find one. Consequently, the staff took me and a few others down to court level at one of the ends where I was given a seat amongst the away fans. My vantage point wasn’t so great for my neck at times, but it brought me as close to the action as I am ever likely to get.

It was a wonderful atmosphere and turned out to be an absolutely fantastic match which was won by the visiting team in the final second.

Final Score: Yokohama Excellence 97-98 Fukui Blowinds

Click here to read ‘My 1st Leicester Tigers Rugby Match For 23 Years!’

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