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Neptune Basketball Club is an Irish
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 (appr ...
club based in
Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
. Founded in 1947 following input from members of the
Irish Defence Forces The Defence Forces ( ga, Fórsaí Cosanta, officially styled ) derives its origins from the Irish Volunteers. Whilst the Irish for ''Defence Forces'' is , as Ó Cearúil (1999) points out, the Defence Forces are officially styled . is used i ...
in developing citizen's clubs, Neptune is the oldest and most successful basketball club in Ireland. Based at Neptune Stadium, Neptune is the only basketball club in Ireland with its own stadium.


History

The club's senior men's representative team has won the Irish
National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...
title 11 times. Known as Burgerland Neptune throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the team won seven championships between 1983 and 1991 thanks to American import Terry Strickland and the support of Irish investor Jackie Solan. Neptune won a further four titles between 1995 and 2003. In 2013, Neptune won their fifth National Cup title and first since 1992. In July 2015, Neptune withdrew from the Premier League following a major loss of player personnel, deciding instead to join the second-tiered National League Division 1 for the 2015–16 season. Neptune continued on in Division 1 for the 2016–17 season and subsequently won the 2017 Hula Hoops Presidents Cup. In March 2018, they were promoted back into Basketball Ireland's Men's Super League. After initially being relegated back down to Division 1 following the 2018–19 season, the withdrawal of cross-town rival
UCC Demons UCC Demons are an Irish basketball team based in Cork. The team competes in the Super League and plays its home games at Mardyke Arena. The team is a division of Blue Demons Basketball Club and is directly associated with the University College ...
led to Neptune remaining in the Super League for the 2019–20 season. In the 2021–22 season, Neptune reached the final of both the National Cup and the League playoffs.


Achievements

* 11× Irish Men's National League champions: 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2003 * 5× Irish Men's National Cup champions: 1985, 1988, 1990, 1992, 2013


Notable players

* Joe Healy * Gerald Kennedy * Stephen McCarthy * Jim Nugent * Brendan O'Flaherty * Tom O'Sullivan * Ray Smith * Pete Strickland * Terry Strickland * Tom Wilkinson


References


Further reading

* *


External links

*
Neptune Stadium: The Arena Which Transformed Irish Basketball
{{Super League (Ireland) Former Super League (Ireland) teams Sport in Cork (city) Sports clubs in County Cork