Mercenaries is a
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
club based in
Mutare, Zimbabwe. Since 2006, the team has competed in the Manicaland Basketball Association (MBA), winning a league championship in each season.
History
Mercenaries was founded in 2004 by a group of friends from
Mutare, led by Innocent Sithole, who hoped to make money playing together in basketball tournaments. In 2006, the club joined the Manicaland Basketball Association (MBA). Since then, it has won 13 consecutive league titles without losing a single game.
In 2019, Mercenaries won its first
National Basketball Club Championship, becoming the first team from outside
Harare
Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...
and
Bulawayo
Bulawayo (, ; Ndebele: ''Bulawayo'') is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council ...
to do so.
Honours
Zimbabwe National Championship
*Champions (1): 2019
Manicaland Basketball Association
*Champions (13): 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
In African competitions
BAL Qualifiers (1 appearance)
::
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...
– First Round
Personnel
Current roster
The following is the Mercenaries roster for the
2020 BAL Qualifying Tournaments:
Mercenaries
at FIBA
The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. Originally known as the (hence FIBA), in 1989 it dropped the word ''amateur'' from its nam ...
.com
Notable players
* Tatenda Maturure
Tatenda Paul Maturure (born 14 August 1988) is a Zimbabwean professional basketball player for Mercenaries of the Manicaland Basketball Association (MBA).
Club career
Maturure has spent a large part of his career with the Harare City Hornets i ...
References
{{Reflist
External links
Mercenaries Basketball Club
on Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
Basketball teams in Zimbabwe
Road to BAL teams
Basketball teams established in 2004
Mutare