Old Mentonians Basketball Club – OMBC
For the past 4 decades the Old Mentonian Basketball Club has been managing senior and junior basketball teams, competing within the Southern Basketball Association in Sandringham. Growth in the Club has contributed to OMBC now offering:
- Junior domestic teams (Under 8 to Under 21)
- This includes 14 girls teams and 29 boys teams
- Over 300 registered junior players!
- 6 senior mens teams
- Daytime & evening ladies teams
Enquiries
If you can’t find the information you need on this website, please send us an enquiry. We recommend following us on our Facebook page and Instagram @oldmentoniansbasketballclub for up-to-date information.
Links to fixtures, registration and uniform orders can be found below.
Uniforms
OMBC Shorts and Singlets are made to order. Please ordering using the link below. Allow approximately 3 weeks for delivery. For help with uniform sizing, please refer to Singlet and Shorts Sizing Chart.
A small selection of hoodies are in stock and can be ordered by clicking the link below.
Affiliates
The OMBC Club was formed by The Mentonians of Mentone Grammar and has had a long and proud association dating back to the seventies.
OMBC plays in the domestic competition of the Southern Basketball Association.
Team Information
Our girl’s OMBC Panthers teams are continuing to grown in number, with 8 teams competing in the Southern Basketball Association’s league in Sandringham. We are keen to continue to grow our representation of girls teams in age groups between under 9’s to under 21’s.
In 2017, OMBC welcomed our first women’s team, playing in the daytime ladies competition at Sandringham. This quickly grew to 4 daytime teams playing on both Mondays and Thursdays and now we have additional Monday and Thursday ladies teams joining the evening competition.
Club History
From the late 1970s several Old Mentonians, under the leadership of popular past pupil and teacher, Tony Drinan, played basketball at Sandringham under the name of the Old Mentonians.
The charismatic Tony would personally select and invite MGS students as they prepared to finish at the School to come and join his team that played on a Sunday nights at the then one court facility in Tulip Street. Outside of using this team to represent the Old Mentonians at the annual Queens Birthday Games at the School (now known as the Principal’s Sports Day) there were no further desires or moves to commence a Club.
By 1985, two further teams were playing in the local area, one at Sandringham under the name of ‘sad sacks’ which was made up of Old Mentonian footballers in their off season, and another team playing in the competition at Chelsea under the name of Mentone led by MGS maths teacher and Old Mentonian Ian ‘Stretch’ Webster.
In late 1985 a meeting was called by the OMA and a number of Old Mentonians associated with these three teams along with others with an interest in basketball were invited to attend.
This led to the formation of the Old Mentonians Basketball Club for the commencement of the 1986 winter season, with the Club fielding four teams that year.
Following its first year the Club continued to grow. In the late 1980s the Club and was on the crest of a wave; it had introduced associate memberships for girls and was now fielding 21 senior teams including three women’s teams.
In 1991 another milestone was reached with the introduction of junior teams and within two years the Club boasted 21 junior teams with more than 150 MGS and MGGS students involved. While this aspect of growth was terrific, it did come at a cost and by 1995 the senior Club had retracted to just seven teams.
Currently, more than 110 MGS and 30 OMs and associates enjoy a weekly game of basketball.