By JAPHETH KAZENGA, 28th December 2011 @ 11:00, Total Comments: 0, Hits: 2679
MWANZA Regional Basketball Association (MRBA) is expected to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Robert Cup tournament in the region this weekend.
The association’s Acting Chairman, Kizito Bahati, said the event, which will include a series of matches, has been scheduled to take place at the Butimba Teachers College (BTC) venue for two consecutive days, in which it is set to start today and come to a close on Friday.
Robert Cup, which is among the major club events in Mwanza, was officially inaugurated in 2001 in honour of the late Robert Chacha Kabaka, who was one of the founders of the Butimba Spiders basketball club and an avid basketball stakeholder in the region.
Bahati said MRBA will also use the same occasion to award several sports stakeholders including companies and other individual sponsors, who have financially supported Mwanza to either host competitions or participate in different events in and outside the region for the past 10 years of the sport’s development there.
“The association will honour all people that financially supported the body, which known as MWAREBA by then, from the time it operated under the former system governed by the national association, Basketball Tanzania (BATA), to the present time when the national body has been transformed to Tanzania Basketball Federation (TBF),” he said.
“MRBA, thus, requests basketball stakeholders to attend the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Robert Cup, as well as celebrating the development of the sport in the region throughout the 10 years,” added Bahati.
He said the event’s guest of honour is expected to be the Minister for Labour and Youth Development, Gaudensia Kabaka, while Mwanza Oil (MOIL) Company and Nyanza Bottling Company Limited (NBCL) have sponsored the event.
Butimba Spiders Club has since then emerged as one of the feared outfits in regional competitions, in which the club has been able to hold its own against other giants like Bugando Planet and Bugando Heat.
The club contributed five players in the region’s men squad, popularly known as Rocky City Boys, which participated in this year’s Taifa Cup tournament held at the Leaders Club and Don Bosco venues in Dar es Salaam early this month.
The players are Evodius Henga, Vincent Shinda, Enock Charles, Samwel Mujanja and Ally Issa. Shinda, in particular, has been one of the most reliable players at his club and in the regional squad thanks to his spirited displays on the court.
He, together with another veteran, Henga, has been representing Mwanza in various major competitions at the domestic level and in the East African Region.
The duo, though, were unfortunate to have wrapped their campaign with the Rocky City Boys’ squad in the Taifa Cup disappointingly after the team was controversially disqualified from the tournament despite having qualified for the final.
Unguja, who lost to the Rocky City Boys in the semi-final duel, protested against the latter’s decision to field two players, Spiders’ Charles and Ahmed Said of Dolphins Pasiansi Club, in the event claiming the two were not in the list of the team’s players, which was submitted to the Tanzania Basketball Federation (TBF) before the event.
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