KILLESTER BASKETBALL CLUB,
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
WITH THE VERONICA GUERIN ARENA.
Welcome to the website of Killester Basketball Club, Ireland’s biggest basketball club founded in 1967 to cater for boys and girls in the greater Dublin city and county.
The club is currently in negotiations with various parties to build it’s first home in its 44 year existance to honour one of it’s most famous past members Veronica Guerin..
OUR VISION
Killester Basketball Club’s go-ahead Chairman Michael McCormack see’s the development as a Regional Centre for Excellence. “That is exactly as I see it, depending on space and finance available I would like to have a three or four court arena catering not just for our club but for the greater North Leinster area. A venue that could be used by both schools and clubs and for the greater good of the game, I also see it being used as a tool to bring tourism to this country. Everyone is familiar with the growth of American colleges coming over in the summer of each year to play basketball but our underage sides visit the likes of USA, Holland, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Estonia as well as England, Scotland, Isle of Man and Wales where the facilities are second to none. If we had a state of the art arena we could have clubs from these countries visiting Dublin, adding to our tourism revenue in these difficult times by spending substantial amounts. Pittsburgh University is a prime example, we were asked to host them this year and they brought over 100 people with them and played two games in Dublin, as well as Cork, Limerick and Belfast” said McCormack.
McCormack continues. “Basketball is very much a minority sport when it comes to receiving finance but if you look at the numbers playing our sport it is up there with the top three GAA, Rugby and Soccer. In a recent ESRI survey it shows that there are approximately 400,000 playing the sport (both competitively and socially) but again apart from school gymnasia and the NBA in Tallaght, the Neptune Stadium in Cork and the College Gym’s the facilities are poor” added McCormack.
“Another advantage of basketball is that when the season is in full swing there are no cancellations due to weather. If you look at recent surveys particularly in council pitches throughout Leinster there are a huge number of particularly soccer games cancelled due to weather conditions and we have found that this has led to so many underage boys and girls joining our club”
“Killester Basketball Club caters for thirty underage teams as well as 100 development children each week. We also have ten senior teams both male and female and that includes our highly successful Superleague Men’s and Ladies teams. (We are the only basketball club in Ireland with a superleague team in both the men’s and ladies leagues) We also have a thriving Special Olympics section catering for one hundred athletes and a Wheelchair Basketball section”
