Lothian Phoenix, The only Scottish team competing in the Great Britain Wheelchair Basketball Association leagues, completed their second Promotion in two years with a well-fought contest against the Oldham Owls in the GBWBA 2nd Division Championship.

After finishing 2nd in the 2nd Division North behind the Owls, Lothian had a semi-final against the Raiders, who finished 1st in the South. After a comfortable victory over the Raiders, the stage was set for a rematch against the Owls.  The Oldham team had previously beaten the Phoenix by 28 and 24 points during league play. 

After an even opening half, in the 3rd quarter the game started to turn in Oldham’s favour. After a few quick breakaways, the Phoenix found themselves 13 points down. 

The Phoenix poured on the defensive pressure against Oldham and managed to score some well worked baskets off the resulting turnovers. Most of those baskets came from Phoenix top scorer, Robert O’Rorke, and Musselburgh’s Simon Ramsay.

By midway through the fourth quarter Lothian found themselves in the lead and looking comfortable. They saw the game out to finish with a 9 point lead, winning 56 – 47. The Phoenix can now look forward to a season in the 1st Division and are making plans to enter a second team into the Great Britain Development League.

Head Coach of the Phoenix, Stevie Duff, commented after the game, “The team has worked very hard during the course of the season and have improved steadily during this time.  They thoroughly deserve all the success they have achieved this weekend.  We are  looking forward to the new challenge of playing in Division One next season and will be beginning to make our preparations as soon as we get back up the road to Scotland.”