Melbourne Tigers is a

NBL1 South NBL1 South is a NBL1 conference based in South East Australia, comprising both a men's and women's competition. In 2019, Basketball Victoria partnered with the National Basketball League (NBL) to create NBL1 to replace the South East Australi ...

club based in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Victoria. The club fields a team in both the Men's and Women's NBL1 South. The club is a division of Melbourne Basketball Association (MBA), the major administrative basketball organisation south of Melbourne's

Central Business District A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

. The Tigers play their home games at

Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre Melbourne Sports Centres - MSAC is an international sporting venue located in Albert Park, Victoria, Australia. The centre was opened on 24 July 1997 at a construction cost of A$65 million. The cost was funded by the State Government of Victori ...

Club history

Background

The Melbourne Tigers were established in 1931 with the birth of the Victorian Basketball Association (VBA). The Melbourne senior men's club began as St Lukes from North Fitzroy, where basketball games were played at St Lukes hall from 1924. The name of the club went through an evolution process where the club changed from St Lukes to Church of England, to becoming Church. It then became Melbourne Church and finally in 1975 the club decided to change its name to Melbourne Tigers. Considered Australian basketball's most famous club, the Tigers were founded by Ken Watson. Watson coached Tigers' senior teams from the 1940s to the 1970s. The Junior Boys' Club originated from the Saturday night Church of England Boys' Society (CEBS) competition run at Albert Park Stadium, which began in 1959. Junior girls' basketball was not played until 1968. The CEBS competition folded in 1970, which led to the Melbourne Tigers Junior Basketball Association taking over competitions run at Albert Park. Watson was heavily involved in Tigers junior teams until the early 2000s.

Men's team

Between 1965 and 1970, Melbourne Church of England won the South Eastern Conference (SEC)

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

every year. The league was abandoned in 1971. In 1981, the Tigers were an inaugural team in the

South East Australian Basketball League The South East Australian Basketball League (SEABL) was an Australian semi-professional basketball league. The league comprised both a men's and women's competition and was run by the country's governing body, Basketball Australia. The league wa ...

(SEABL). In 1982, they finished second on the SEABL ladder before going on to reach the ABA National grand final, where they lost to the Frankston Bears. In 1983, they finished first on the SEABL ladder to win the SEABL championship. They went on to reach the ABA National grand final, where they won the National championship with a victory over the

Bulleen Boomers The Melbourne Boomers are an Australian professional basketball team based in Melbourne, Victoria. The Boomers compete in the Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) and play the majority of their home games at Melbourne Sports Centre – Par ...

. In 1984, the Melbourne Tigers NBL team was established and they debuted in the National Basketball League (NBL). The Tigers name continued in the NBL until the franchise rebranded as Melbourne United in 2014. In 2004, a Tigers state league men's team joined the

Big V Big or BIG may refer to: * Big, of great size or degree Film and television * ''Big'' (film), a 1988 fantasy-comedy film starring Tom Hanks * '' Big!'', a Discovery Channel television show * ''Richard Hammond's Big'', a television show present ...

Championship Division. In 2008 and 2009, the team won back-to-back Big V titles. Following the 2015 season, the Tigers men's team left the Big V and returned to the SEABL in 2016 for the first time since 1983.

Women's team

The Melbourne Tigers played in the

Women's National Basketball League The Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) is the pre-eminent professional women's basketball league in Australia. It is currently composed of eight teams. The league was founded in 1981 and is the women's counterpart to the National Baske ...

(WNBL) between

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

and

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

. They reached back-to-back WNBL grand finals in 1994 and 1995, finishing runners-up in both years. In 1992 and 1993, a Tigers women's team also competed in the Country Victorian Invitation Basketball League (CVIBL) Division One. In 2002, the Tigers women's team joined the

Championship Division. In 2003 and 2004, the team won back-to-back Big V titles. In 2017, the Tigers women's team joined the SEABL for the first time. In 2019, following the demise of the SEABL, the Tigers joined the

References

External links

Melbourne Tigers official websiteMelbourne Tigers NBL1 websiteMelbourne Basketball Association websiteMelbourne Tigers Junior Basketball Club website
{{NBL1 Big V teams South East Australian Basketball League teams Basketball teams established in 1931 1931 establishments in Australia Basketball teams in Melbourne