The town of Guildford has been home to several elite basketball teams down the years. With the opening of the Guildford Spectrum, the successful Kingston team uprooted, moved in and renamed themselves as the Guildford Kings in 1992, briefly calling the place home until they folded in 1994, as did the Guildford Pumas before they relocated to Sutton in 1999. 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.