Basketball fans are taking the winter game and turning it into Brighton seafront's hottest sporting passion.

Streetball is reaching new heights of popularity, partly as a result of Brighton Bears' dramatic upturn in fortunes.

Brighton beach is the top place to be seen playing.

Even Bears coach Nick Nurse and some of his players join the mix of colours, sizes and nationalities doing their stuff.

Nurse has made a bit of streetball part of his Saturday afternoon ritual recently.

Last weekend Bears skipper Randy Duck decided a run out beneath threatening thunder clouds was the ideal way to recover from a flight from San Francisco.

Mark Jackson, Bud Johnston, Jon Turner, academy coach Brian Snyder and Worthing Thunder's Ollie Roche are all regulars.

Games can continue well into the evening and sizeable crowds of bypassers can gather, their attention drawn by the skills, the fashions, the banter and arguments that flare when a foul is claimed.

Streetball exponents from London will be at the beach from midday this coming Saturday for Ballers in Brighton, a come-and-play event run by basketball outfitters Hosana in association with the Bears.

Hosana hope to promote the game, share the streetball spirit, give kids a chance to play and, of course, do business. They have spotted something exciting going on at the seaside and want first stab at the marketplace.

Roger Hosannah, who runs the company said: "Streetball is cool, it's irreverent, it's laid back and that fits perfectly with Brighton."

Bears fan Nick Stevens, 22, is a devotee. He said: "I have been playing since they built the first court in this town at Varndean. There were about ten of us back then.

"Now you can be looking at 50 people wanting to play on a Saturday and it has certainly helped with the Bears coming back into town.

"The Bears players earn a lot of respect coming here."

Not least Nurse. He may be a few years older than the rest of the players, he might squint into the sun like someone who has spent his working life in dingy gyms and he might run on knees which have pounded 1,000 rock hard courts.

But put the ball in his hands and he will usually shoot a three or thread a pass through a gap no-one else has spotted.

A couple of weeks ago his team held the court so long he had to cancel a trip to watch the Summer League play-offs at Crystal Palace in the evening.

After each win he would stand there like a Wild West gunslinger and announce: "That's game! Who's next?"

Then last Saturday came what will go down as the play of the summer.

The coach somehow flicked the ball from down near his left knee to arrive above the rim at the same time as the flying Duck, who jammed it home one-handed. The kids loved that.

If the coach sees someone who impresses him, he will not hang around. "Hey kid, come here and tell me about yourself," he said to one performer after a recent game.

What about the guard over there with the dazzling skills? "He's good but he's 'street'. No left hand whatsoever," was the expert verdict.

Before long, summer will fizzle out and it will be back to the Brighton Centre, with Nurse directing operations, Stevens returning to his match night job as a steward and many of the others cheering from the stands.

For now though they are all playground ballers together.