Says Charwayne Walker
Basketball in Guyana received a tremendous boost with the appointment of Guyanese Patrick Haynes as Head of CONCENCABA.
Haynes, who is the first Guyana to be appointed in this prestigious position might be cognizant of his predecessors who started the basketball drive some 70 years ago 1953 in the then British Guiana.
Today Stabroek Sports will pay tribute to one of the trail blazing teams that paved the way for basketball to become the sport that it has.
The formation of the Dan River Panthers Basketball Club was the idea of two brothers Peter and Joey Kaufman.
The idea came to them in June 1954 one year after the original Ravens Basketball Club was formed.
These two brothers were struggling with the idea of getting basketball on an organized footing but their progress was uncertain. However, they took heart from the formation of the Ravens Basketball Club and got things moving.
And the Panthers never looked back going on and did some giant killing in 1955 by winning the Association and Chairman’s Shields.
Of the original Panthers team of 1954 were Carl Spence and Sandy McDonald.
The skipper Deryck (Bull) Burnett, who joined them early in 1955 was elected for the next two years and led them for the third year in 1958.
There was also a girls’ section to the club, this was founded in 1955 but did not become active until 1956 when they picked up the Cho Chin Shield by virtue of good organization and giant killing enthusiasm.
1957 was a full one for the Panthers. Besides winning the ‘’A’’ League and the Open knockout competition, they exchanged tours with the Nickerie Basketball Association and gained six places in the British Guiana team to Suriname in April, 1957, five in October against the Suriname Youth Team and five in December against Trinidad Club Champions, Cagers.
Their tour to Nickerie Suriname in August 1957 ended in a 1-1 tie while the Nickerie Girls team toured British Guiana in October 1957 and lost the one game they played against the Panthers.
When their six selectees returned from Suriname with the first British Guiana basketball Team in April 1957 they applied their experience so well that not once in the season did they go below 40 points. On the way to the 1957 senior championship they beat Police, Clowns and Chinese teams by 18 or more points.
