ASPO Tours

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ASPO Tours
Founded 1925
Hall Gymnase Jules Ferry Tours
president Eric Gougeon
Trainer
league

ASPO Tours (full name: Association sportive de preparation olympique Tours ) is a French basketball team from Tours , which belongs to the sports club of the same name.

history

Beginnings

The parent club was founded in 1913, the basketball department in 1925. The team first drew attention to itself in 1945 when it made it to the quarter-finals of the play-offs for the French championship. In the post-war years, ASPO spent various seasons in the top league in France, but without holding top positions. In contrast, the youth teams won several titles. After a few years in the second division (National 2), promotion to the first division was achieved as champions in the 1966/67 season. They only played an average role there, but stayed away from the relegation zone for years. The 1973/74 season was the best in the club's history for the time being, when ASPO finished fifth and was allowed to participate in the Korać Cup in the following season , where they came under the last 16 and were unhappy in a group of four. The rapid increase in performance of the team did not stop this failure. ASPO was French runner-up in the 1974/75 season, just one point behind champions ASVEL Lyon .

French champion and European Cup final

In the following season, 1975/76, ASPO then distanced the previous year's champions with seven points and won the French league. This great success was not the only one this season, because the team also reached the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup , for which they qualified as last year's runner-up, as there was no cup competition in France at that time. After ASPO successfully survived the group stage, the team met CB Estudiantes Madrid . Although the first leg at home in Tours was clearly won 106-81, the Spaniards gave everything in the second leg and won with 93:72. The French had thus achieved a total of 4 basket points more and moved into the final. In this one met the Italian series champion and defending champion of the European Cup Winners' Cup Olimpia Milano . ASPO went into the game as an underdog, but kept the match open until the end. Ultimately, the team lost to the Milanese with 83:88.

National champion cup and again French champion

As French champions, the team played for the first time in the most important European Cup, the European Cup of National Champions, in the 1976/77 season, finished second in the group of four behind Racing Pils Mechelen and was eliminated because only the first-placed went through. ASPO could not defend the title in the national league, but occupied places in the top third of the table in the following years. The team celebrated their second championship win in the 1979/80 season, when in the meanwhile introduced final for the league win Le Mans Sarthe Basket was beaten 72:66. In the following second participation in the national championship cup, the team narrowly failed again in the group stage. In front of Panathinaikos Athens and Sutton & Crystal Palace , but behind Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv , the group was completed.

Last years in the LNB Pro A

Initially, ASPO stayed among the top teams in France and was third in the season after winning the championship. But already in the 1985/86 season, which the team finished sixth, a downward trend was noticeable. After relegation in 1984 was only just averted, this was no longer achieved in the 1984/85 season when ASPO Tours was relegated to the second division as 13th. Three more seasons followed in the elite league, the LNB Pro A, before the third relegation occurred in seven years in the 1991/92 season and the club has not made it back since then. For a few seasons ASPO was still playing in the second-class LNB Pro B , when this could no longer be held and the transition to third-class was started. In the meantime, the game operations of a professional team have been temporarily suspended because there is a lack of sponsors and the financial situation has been problematic since the descent from the LNB Pro A in 1992. However, youth teams continue to compete under ASPO's name.

successes

National

International

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Korac-Cup 1973-74 on linguasport.com
  2. ↑ Cup Winners Cup 1975/76 on linguasport.com
  3. ↑ Champions Cup 1976-77 on linguasport.com
  4. ↑ La petite histoire de l'ASPO Basket ( Memento of the original from November 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on aspo.tours.free.fr @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / aspo.tours.free.fr