'Sweet Georgia Brown' is still the Trotters' theme tune, more than 80 years after businessman Abe Saperstein formed the Savoy Big Five to play basketball in a Chicago ballroom and realised that music, glamour and showmanship transformed mere sport into spectacle. The Trotters gave up playing straight competitive matches in 1949, after which they assembled a run of more than 8,800 wins (including, in 1968, their first official game in Harlem), but their appeal hasn't faded. The latest squad of talented, personable, college- (but probably not NBA-) standard players are as committed to showcasing the positive values of sport as their legendary predecessors Wilt 'The Stilt' Chamberlain, Meadowlark Lemon, 'Curly' Neal and 'Goose' Tatum, with all the old stunts, tricks, set-pieces and audience participation intact. The New York Nationals will be the usual willing stooges, primed to push the Trotters close but not to destroy the unique feelgood factor they still generate. Andrew Shields
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