Hoop dreams are being realised in York as basketball undergoes a student revolution.

York University Basketball Club has finished among the county's prize guys and sights are set on even higher achievement next season.

And former national League player Julian Gill, who is the guiding hand behind the club, forecasts a bright future as the sport enjoys an upwardly mobile move fuelled by the capture of prizes over the past two seasons.

Impetus to the York renaissance has been given substance by the YUBC, which has benefited from the patronage of the university.

Next term York will be represented on two different fronts and open to non-students as well as the club builds on its latest success.

After a poor start to the Yorkshire League campaign they finished with a mighty flourish.

York won the League Cup in the top four play-offs in which they humbled Sheffield Hallam and then beat all-conquering Huddersfield in the final. That followed the 1997 achievement of finishing runners-up in the Yorkshire League.

That power-laced platform has enabled the club to launch a two-pronged assault when the new season bounces into play in September.

Player-coach Gill, a former National League junior and senior with Worthing Bears, explained that next season teams will be fielded in the Doncaster League and the Leeds League.

"We will operate as a York Basketball Club in the first, which is highly competitive and attracts players with national division experience, and then as the York University BC in the Leeds League.

"It will mean players can appear in both leagues and that will increase competition for places and lift the standard," said the 28-year-old Gill, who is studying psychology at York.

Confident of attracting new players to the revived set-up, including a core of talent from Ryedale, Gill has an evangelical zeal about the sport for which he believes there is a growing passion in the city.

He recalled how last season when only able to accommodate a squad of 15 players the club attracted a total of 35 players to a training session.

"The interest is there," said Gill. "It's ridiculous for York not to have a basketball club. With the new players we are planning to recruit we should have a strong team for next year.

"Certainly we are hoping to build on this year's success."

Gill added that York had a strong basketball presence, winning almost everything it entered five years ago. "Then it just disappeared and players went elsewhere," he said.

"Now we will be able to get some of those players back. As a club we are definitely on the up."

The club, which also runs a women's team to compete in the Yorkshire League next term, trains five times a week, with a 7pm to 10pm session each Friday at the university aimed at assessing new talent. Anyone interested can contact Gill tel York 422180.

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