 However it was the first major team, the Guildford Pirates who played in the town from 1975 to 1982 that would come back to figure prominently in the birth of the new club, the Guildford Heat.In 1982, the Pirates moved to nearby Bracknell, becoming the Bracknell Pirates and later the Thames Valley Tigers.For many years, the Tigers were one of the front runners of the British basketball scene, winning the league Championship in 1994, but it was in the new millennium that the successes dried up and for owner John Nike, the team was too much of a financial burden.