THE Basingstoke Bison will be hoping to toast more success this season as Berry Bros. & Rudd will continue as a major sponsor of the team for the forthcoming season.

To celebrate their second year involved with the Herd the fine wine and spirit merchants, located at Hamilton Close, Houndmills are offering a great prize of a Bison season ticket which is worth over £300.

To be entered into the draw to win this super prize, all you need to do is spend £10 in the Berry Bros. & Rudd Warehouse Shop at Hamilton Close.

Every multiple of £10 spent in the shop will see a voucher given out and this will be entered into a raffle which will be drawn at the Bison’s special season ticket evening on Thursday June 4.

Berry Bros. & Rudd being a major sponsor will be there on the night with vouchers for your last chance to win a season ticket.

The evening will also see the club announce their new team captain for the forthcoming campaign following the retirement of Nicky Chinn.

As well as the season ticket Berry Bros. & Rudd are also be holding wine tasting evenings for season ticket holders and the Bison’s sponsors.

Also on production of your season ticket or Bison match night ticket Herd fans will receive a 20 per cent discount.

Bison player/coach Doug Sheppard is delighted to have Berry Bros. & Rudd supporting the team again and said: “We enjoyed a great relationship last year, so it is great to have them back on board again.”

Stephanie Barlow, Berry Bros. & Rudd’s warehouse shop manager said: “We are looking forward to another successful season with the Bison and welcoming their fans to our Warehouse Shop.”

As well as having another great sponsor on board, Sheppard is really pleased with the way the Herd for the forthcoming campaign is coming together.

The defence looks just as strong with Slovak Miroslav Vantroba returning along with top British defencemen Kurt Reynolds, Declan Balmer and Joe Baird.

This gives the team two ready made pairings as Balmer and Vantroba formed a very good partnership last season, as did the experienced duo of Reynolds and Baird.

The forward line already has two import forwards in Sheppard himself and Czech flair player Tomas Karpov.

The top two British scorers for the Bison last season, Joe Greener and Ciaran Long quickly re-signed and the pair will add even more firepower to the line-up.

The only new signing so far is another forward Shaun Thompson, who like Greener and Long is another Brit who can score the team over 20 goals a season.

He has arrived from the Bison’s English Premier League rivals the Manchester Phoenix.

Sheppard said: “I felt we had a good team last year and it was important to bring back the core of this.

“I look at the line-up so far and know I have players who are going to work hard for 60 minutes and will want to win every game.”

Sheppard added: “We know we will have to improve as a team as we finished third in the league, so we are going to have some new faces as well as some more re-signings. We want to get back to winning trophies next season.”

“I have to make sure we get the right pieces of the jigsaw. I am not just going to rush out and sign the first player that comes along.”

There will be more signing news next week from the Bison, as Sheppard is set to add another name to his roster for the forthcoming campaign.