Ampelokipoi B.C. or Ampelokipi B.C. () is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

club that is based in the

Athenian Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

neighborhood Ampelokipoi. It plays in the third local division (Γ ΕΣΚΑ), but in the past it has played in the top-tier

Greek Basket League The Greek Basketball League (GBL), and also known as the Stoiximan Greek Basketball League (GBL) for sponsorship reasons, is the Greek basketball league system, first tier level professional basketball league in Greece. It is run by the ...

for two seasons. The club's colours are green and white, and its emblem is three circles, like Olympic circles.

History

Ampelokipoi was founded in 1929, originally as Hephaestus Athens. In the first post-war years, the club was renamed to Athletic Union of Ampelokipoi, and in the year 1954, the club merged with Niki Ampelokipoi, and was then renamed to Ampelokipoi Athletic Club. The club had departments in all popular sports in Greece: football, basketball, and volleyball. But the club was in the shadow of the nearby Panathinaikos club. Only during the 1990s, did the basketball team have some success, when it had Georgios Kalafatakis as

head coach A head coach, senior coach, or manager is a professional responsible for training and developing athletes within a sports team. This role often has a higher public profile and salary than other coaching positions. In some sports, such as associat ...

, and was promoted up through five division levels in five seasons, ultimately reaching the top-tier

. Ampelokipoi played in the top-tier Greek Basket League for two seasons (1994–95 and 1995–96), having notable players such as Tzanis Stavrakopoulos, Giorgos Floros, Lawrence Funderburke, and Ashraf Amaya in the team. After losing the most notable players of the team, the club then played in the Greek 2nd Division for the two next seasons. In those following years, the club's most notable player was Theo Papaloukas. Over the following years, Ampelokipoi started on a decline period, and the team ended up down in the local regional divisions.

Honours and titles

Domestic competitions

* Greek 2nd Division : Champions (1): 1993–94 * Greek 3rd Division : Champions (1): 1992–93 * Greek 4th Division : Champions (1): 1991–92

Notable players

Greece: * Giorgos Floros * Panagiotis Maragopoulos * Theo Papaloukas * Tzanis Stavrakopoulos * Dimitrios Papadakis Americas: * Ashraf Amaya * Lawrence Funderburke * Aaron Williams * Ian Lockhart

Head coaches

* Georgios Kalafatakis

Men's football club

Ampelokipoi's football team, Ampelokipoi F.C. did not manage to have the same kind of successes as the basketball club did. In 2003, the football team of Ampelokipoi merged with the local team Pyrsos, and was then renamed to Athletic Culture Club of Ampelokipoi (Αθλητικός Πολιτιστικός Σύλλογος Αμπελοκήπων).