Facts about the new Mfantsipim basketball court and the school

A new school court opened on anniversary day

Mfantsipim Senior High School in Cape Coast commissioned its new basketball court on 13 November 2020, and the facility was declared ready for use the same day. The ceremony took place on the school's own grounds, with Kwamena Duncan, then Minister for the Central Region, leading the list of dignitaries.

For Mfantsipim School the timing carried weight. The opening fell during the celebrations of its 144th anniversary, and it handed the most decorated boys' team in the Sprite Ball Championship a home court built to a standard the old one never reached.

The facts about the Mfantsipim basketball court

Three facts stood out from the day, and each says something about how the project was put together.

The first of those facts concerns the money, which came from former students. The Mfantsipim Old Boys Association, known as MOBA, funded the construction, with members of the 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000 year groups paying for it. No government grant or corporate sponsor was named in the reports of the commissioning.

The cost was pegged at one million Ghana cedis, which was converted at the time to about $172,898. That figure covered more than a playing surface: the new Mfantsipim basketball court came with washrooms, changing rooms and a seating area for spectators.

The build was fast. The sod-cutting ceremony took place on the site on 12 September 2020, and the facility was commissioned in mid-November, a little over two months later.

Part of a bigger sports plan for the school

The court was not meant to stand alone. Reports from the commissioning described it as one piece of a larger plan to give the school a full sports arena, one that would also include a swimming pool and a tennis court. At the time of the opening, those other parts were still plans.

A sports arena on that scale would be unusual for a Ghanaian senior high school, where basketball is often played on open concrete slabs with bare rims. For a school that already had a court of its own, the old boys chose to rebuild properly instead of patching the surface, and the changing rooms and seating show the project was planned around match days as well as training.

Mfantsipim Senior High School and the Sprite Ball

The school has a long head start on most of its rivals. Mfantsipim was founded by the Methodist Church in Cape Coast on 3 April 1876 as the Wesleyan High School, and it is widely described as the oldest secondary school in Ghana. Its campus sits on Kwabotwe Hill, which gives the school its local nickname.

On the basketball court, Mfantsipim Senior High School built its record in the Sprite Ball Championship, the national high school competition. In January 2019, at the El-Wak Stadium in Accra, the team beat West Africa Senior High School 35-16 in the boys' final, a result Graphic Sports reported as Mfantsipim's fifth Sprite Ball title. A year earlier the same school had lost the 2018 final 25-22 to Presbyterian Senior High School, Osu.

The season before the court opened

The months leading up to the opening were rough ones for Mfantsipim School on the national stage. In the January 2020 final, the defending champions lost 48-40 to Keta Business College, who had also beaten them in the group stage. Keta Business College were later stripped of that title over ineligible players, and no winner was declared for the 2020 Sprite Ball.

Then the coronavirus pandemic closed schools across Ghana and stopped school sport for most of 2020. The Mfantsipim basketball court was therefore built in a year with no national competition to prepare for, and it opened with the next Sprite Ball still undated.

What the new facility changed

For players, the Mfantsipim basketball court made an immediate and practical difference: a proper surface, changing rooms close to the court and a place for spectators to sit. For the old boys who paid for it, the court tied the 144th anniversary to something students would use every day. Earlier rivalries, such as the 2016 final in which St. Augustine's dethroned Mfantsipim, had been fought by teams training on far plainer courts.