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VV Royals to launch annual schools’ tournament Friday
Flash Back! Defending Champions Linden Foundation Secondary posing with their spoils collected from the 2010 edition of the Victory Valley Royals schools Basketball Championships.
The annual Victory Valley (VV) Royals Schools’ Basketball Championship is set to be officially launched on Friday in Linden at the LEND Building (formally LEAP).
Defending Champions, Linden Foundation Secondary, New Silver City Secondary, Mackenzie High School, Linden Technical Institute, Wisburg Secondary and Kwakwani Secondary will be competing this year for attractive prizes. Royals’ overseas chapter is the official sponsors of the tournament.
Under the stewardship and guidance of founder and former national coach of Guyana’s female team, Linden ‘Sancho’ Alphonso, the tournament came into being in 2005 and has grown into the most anticipated schools’ tournament in Linden.
The participating schools will be outfitted with uniforms, compliments of the organisers, who were able to have influential overseas-based persons, mostly from the Victory Valley community, giving back to the sport.
On Friday, at 1pm, the schools will receive their gear and ball along with the rules of the tournament and will then prepare for the tip-off which is set for the Mackenzie Sports Club hard court on March 28.
Kwakwani Secondary, which boast an impressive schools’ basketball record, being one of the top institutions in the sport after winning the national championships on several occasions, will face the defending champions on the opening day.
According to the VV Royals, the idea of the championships was generated from their observation of a lack of development Leagues within the schools and communities in Linden.
The club with its commitment to the development of basketball took up the mantle and produced a schools’ tournament of enviable proportions. The initial championship saw the participation of the five secondary schools namely Mackenzie High, Linden Foundation, Wismar Christianburg Secondary, Silvercity Secondary, Wisburg Secondary along with the Linden Technical Institute competing for the right to be named the number one basketball school in the Mining Town.
It was through the Royals schools’ championship that Akeem Kanhai began his dream, playing for the Mackenzie High School in every tournament except last year.
Kanhai won several Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards and begun a rivalry with another break-out player from the tournament, Orin ‘Six Heads’ Rose, who was deemed a sniper for his marksman-like aim from behind the three-point line.
Many good players emerged from the competition, including Roderick Alphonso, Neil Chance, Curtis Gravesande, Kerwin Williams and Javon Nelson, but apart from the latter, the others did not go on to represent Guyana at the national level.
Kanhai and Rose would go on to be named Captain of Guyana’s Inter-Guiana Games (IGG) squads, both playing on the victorious side that won in 2008. However, they have outgrown that age group.
Players the likes of flashy point guards Marlon Pollydore and Geoffery LaRose, who are both now members of the Youth Basketball Guyana (YBG) Elite team and played on last year’s National Under-19 team, will be on show during the VV Royals tournament.
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