London Lions 90, Sheffield Sharks 82
To the Copper Box! …once again on Friday evening for some London Lions action at home to the Sheffield Sharks.
The schlepp across town from Sunny Stockwell to Stratford is becoming something of a regular Friday night feature of late. I’ve not yet bought into the idea of the Milton Keynes meets London basketball franchise, but… Friday nights are fun over in East London.
But that bloody tube journey isn’t.
Is it normal for Jubilee trains to terminate at West Ham?
My cheapo Groupon ticket for the Lions is also slightly random. There is no logic as to where you are dumped in the Copper Box.
On Friday night I found that I was sitting right in the middle of the away fans from Sheffield.
Ouch.
1980s memories of continually being called a “scab” whenever a team from Yorkshire visited the City Ground are still strong with me.
I was going to stick it out with the Sheffield supporters, but one particularly gruff Yorkshire fella was getting on my tits with his rather limited vocal show of support.
“C’MON SHARKS!”
Repeat every 20 seconds.
Cheers, fella.
See ya!
The first period on court was pretty even. Both teams traded points, leading to a 20-20 ball game at the first buzzer.
My discovery of the evening was the ACE freebie WiFi in the Copper Box. The event was ‘slightly undersold,’ meaning that there wasn’t a mass scramble to make the most of the big fat pipe.
Having struggled back in Sunny Stockwell late afternoon in trying to upload some school videos back at base, I made the most of the WiFi and released almost 3GB of content over the Copper Box network.
It was worth the £10 ticket alone.
Time outs from both teams seemed to dominate the second quarter. Whole industries of court-side support staff seem to dominate ball games.
What do all of these people actually do?
Lions pulled away to have a ten point lead at one stage, but then the Sharks pulled it back to three, setting up a 47-42 ball game at the half time buzzer.
The game then entered a critical phase; that’s as ‘critical’ as a game in the BBL can ever be described to be.
Shots for the Sharks were short. They also drew too many fouls, allowing the Lions to take a 68-60 lead going into the final stretch.
The chase was too much for the away team. I felt a little sorry for the Sheffield fella, still chuntering away at the other end of the Copper Box.
“C’MON SHARKS!”
Have a nice journey back up the M1, mate.
The final few minutes saw both teams drawing out fouls, both for different reasons. It was a little dull to be honest. I downloaded War and Peace over the freebie WiFi.
A final score of 90-82 to the Lions seemed a fair result.