Manchester Giants was a professional basketball team based in Manchester, England. During its existence, the team won the Trophy in 1999 and the BBL Championship in 2000. The tenure of American coach Nick Nurse, which included these two seasons, was the most successful period in the club's history. The franchise folded 9 games into the 2001–02 season.

There is currently a revival effort taking place to return the Manchester Giants name to the British Basketball League with the establishment of a new franchise, aiming to start competing from the 2012-13 season.

The original Giants were based in Sale and sponsored by ATS. They were the first northern team to challenge the southern dominance of the early national league years. Jeff Jones and Steve Irion were amongst the first 'imports' to the club. Outgrowing Sale Leisure Centre, the club move to Altrincham where they had many successful years, before being merged with Manchester United.

Stockport Belgrade were based at Peel Moat in Heaton Moor, they were created in 1975 and had, in Bill Beswick, one of the best coaches in the history of the sport in the UK.

Coordinates: 53°28′N 2°14′W / 53.467°N 2.233°W / 53.467; -2.233

Manchester ⁱ/ˈmæntʃɛstər/ is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England with an estimated population of 498,800 in 2010. Manchester lies within one of the United Kingdom's largest urban areas; the Greater Manchester Urban Area which has a population of 2.2 million. The demonym of Manchester is Mancunian and the local authority is Manchester City Council.

Manchester is situated in the south-central part of North West England, fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south and the Pennines to the north and east. The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium, which was established in c. 79 AD on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Historically, most of the city was a part of Lancashire, although areas south of the River Mersey were in Cheshire. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township, but it began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city. An early 19th-century factory building boom transformed Manchester from a township into a major mill town and borough that was granted city status in 1853. In 1894 the Manchester Ship Canal was built, creating the Port of Manchester.