St Christopher’s junior basketball club
Club History
Our origin
St Christopher’s Junior Basketball Club has a long and proud history, including our close partnership with St Christopher’s Catholic Primary School (“the school”) and St Christopher’s Catholic Parish (“the parish”). While the club is not affiliated with the school or parish, the close links have continued with the club’s home base situated at the school hall.
St Christopher’s Parish Priest, Fr Phelan recognised the importance of sport for both fitness and fun and inaugurated many sporting clubs. In the late 1960’s, initiated by Fr Phelan, the St Christopher’s Junior Basketball Club was formed, deriving its name from the association between the school and parish community.
In the beginning, the club was supported through the proceeds of Thursday BINGO nights, held in the old parish hall which was not suitable for basketball training.
Over the years, fathers of children who played basketball with the club, ran the BINGO on a roster system and the club was entitled to a percentage of the takings.
The wise investment of this money, principally through one of the club’s first treasurers, Mick Gale, ensured that steps were being taken to procure a venue to call home.
A place to call home
The one thing that was missing over the years was a place for the club to call its own.
The St Christopher’s Primary School principal approached the club as a non-profit community group to be part of the school’s qualifying arrangement with the Australian Government’s Primary Schools for the 21st Century element of the Building the Education Revolution (BER) program. The basketball committee with the then president, Bruce Scott were pleased to come on board and renew the connection between the parish community and club, it was as if the hopes of those who founded the club were to come true.
This partnership renewed the association with St. Christopher’s Junior Basketball Club, St Christopher’s Primary School and the Parish Community and completed a journey that began about 40 years earlier in the late 1960’s.
The money so carefully invested by previous treasurers and their committees enabled the basketball committee at that time to contribute towards state-of-the-art basketball equipment in the St. Christopher’s stadium. The club was proud to have a home base in conjunction with the school.
Indebted to many volunteers
Since the club’s inception, many people have volunteered as coaches, administrators, fundraisers and managers.
A testament to the strong sense of the community the club has fostered, is the number of people who joined the club as players and progressed to coaches. In some cases, 3 generations of families played with the club.
St. Christopher’s Junior Basketball Club is indebted to the past presidents and committee members and especially to Stan Becker, Peter Tyrell, Jenni Guminski, Bruce White, Peter Blackmore, Mick Gale and family, Eddie Service, George Agius, Mick Kelly, Bernie Jansen, Dave Sutton, Bernie O’Sullivan, Tony Bongiorno, Ron Pearce, Paul Stark, David Stevens, Trisha Giunta and Rodney Weston who together with their many associates, the coaches and players worked so hard for the benefit of St. Christopher’s Junior Basketball Club.
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