About Us

Brighton Buccaneers are an amateur baseball club located in Brighton, a lively city on the southern coast of England.

Founded in 1963, the club has grown into one of the most successful organisations in British baseball. It now boasts the best baseball facility in the country, a successful youth programme, and a senior team that has won three British championships in the past four years.

We are always looking for new players of all ages and ability levels.

National League

The Buccaneers First Team competes in British Baseball’s, top competition, National League. This league, consisting of the six dominant teams in Britain, was founded in 2001 and uses wood, rather than aluminum, bats. Coached by Craig Savage, the Buccaneers won the 2001 and 2002 National Championships.

Before the National League was founded, the Bucs also won the 1999 National Championship and were runners-up in 2000.

Although they lost the national final that year, the 2000 Bucs won their division in the regular season and competed in the European club championships. The Bucs shocked the French champion Savigny Lions to finish second in the tournament.

Gaston Panaye, General Secretary of the European Baseball Confederation, described the Bucs as "the best British club side in forty years."

Most of the players on the Bucs’ National League team have college or high school experience in North America. Bucs players have played at every level of intercollegiate baseball from Division III to Division I. Others have played competitively in Australia, Japan, Venezuela, Cuba and elsewhere. Many are members of Great Britain's national team. Some have even played professionally.

John Foster, who played for the Bucs in 1997 while he was in college, made his Major League debut with the Atlanta Braves in 2002, and is now playing for the Milwaukee Brewers.

Division One

The Buccaneers also maintain a Second Team. Coached by Kevin Gogan, this squad competes in the Division One, an aluminum-bat league two levels below the National League.

The team consists of younger players coming up from our youth programme and adult players, some of whom came to the Bucs with little or no competitive baseball experience.

Youth Programmes

For players under the age of 16, the Bucs maintain a youth programme divided into three age groups:

Pony
A team for players aged between 14 to 16 years.

Bronco
Players aged between 10 and 13 years, play on our Bronco team.

Rookies
Our youngest players, in school years 4, 5, 6 and 7 play in the Rookies programme.

Location

All our teams play home fixtures at Pavilion Field, located at Brighton Rugby Club in Waterhall Valley.

The senior, Bronco, and Pony teams play on a Major League regulation-size diamond, while our Rookies play on our new junior diamond.

Our winter training site is at Sussex County Cricket Club.

In the spring, we train at the Brighton Velodrome in Preston Park, Brighton.

Just 50 minutes from central London and 20 minutes from London Gatwick Airport, Brighton boasts excellent transport links to Britain and continental Europe.

In 2002, the Senior First team won their third National Championship in four years.

With its pebble beach and cosmopolitan atmosphere, Brighton has been a popular tourist destination for more than a century. Once a fashionable resort, its now known for its more than 200 pubs and bars, its buzzing nightlife and trendy shops. A young city, students make up 10 per cent of its population.

The Buccaneers home, Pavilion Field, is the finest baseball facility in Britain. It is a training facility for the national team and has hosted every national Final Four tournament since 1999.