Was Basketball a big part of your childhood?

When I started secondary school in Coventry, basketball was enjoying a significant rise in status and popularity in the inner cities, with TV exposure and English teams doing well in Europe, attracting big crowds. Coventry, with a new sports centre hosted 'Team Fiat' who later relocated and became the Birmingham Bullets.

My first coach, Bob Mitchell became head of community at Stoke Park School and set up a school team for my first year as well as a junior club. He developed his pathway alongside mine, so school coach became Coventry National league coach, Warwickshire Men's coach, Camp Director, England age group coach and Birmingham Bullets Men's team coach. I pretty much tracked him as a player and was supported by a whole host of other coaches.

They built 2 outdoor courts at my school and alongside all the other opportunities I had, my best friend Phil Headley and I played every day for the next 7 years. Bob also introduced me to coaching and I supported him at sessions and camps whilst doing my A levels at 6th form.

When I underperformed at A Levels, coach Mitchell rang Exeter University coach Vic Ambler (former GB coach) who also happened to be PE chairman, admissions officer and eventually my Warden. Bob convinced Vic to give me a scholarship, which gave me an opportunity to train as a teacher at a great University and continue to play Basketball at a high level. After graduating I successfully applied for Head of Boys PE at St Augustine's School in Taunton for my first Job.

It sounds like coach Mitchell was an important person in your early life. Do you think he influenced what you went on to do in your role at St. Augustine's?

Basketball wasn't part of the curriculum when I started and there wasn't a school league either. Bob was very different to all the other coaches I came across at that time. He was an educator and he felt it was important young players knew ‘why’ and were involved in discussion. This totally influenced my approach.

Were you involved in setting up inter-school leagues?

Yes, Taunton had a really traditional set-up with Rugby during the first term and Football during the second. Some schools had crazy rules for their more able youngsters, making them play all sports at school. This meant I had to encourage schools to consider playing fixtures in the ‘dark period’ either side of Christmas. We had to start with groups of 3 so we had less fixture commitment but it happened very quickly and successfully.

I introduced it at St Augustine's but other schools soon joined and we soon had a league. Dave Bullock was instrumental in running the leagues and was supported by Colin Barrell at McDonalds sponsoring and paying for a showcase final. We established the rule that all teams would make the playoffs, which encouraged schools to play their benches and take a long-term approach to development.

St Augustine’s dominated the early finals which wasn't what we wanted long term for Basketball in Somerset. We were the smallest school but I had more experience than other coaches and our players started in year 7, which was 2 years ahead of most other schools. We also played in the National Schools competition. It wasn't good for the club to have players mostly from one school so we were looking for a better way.

We were able to raise money from Taunton Deane to run a Championship Coaching programme, which turned out to be the perfect solution. Schools were able send up to 7 players they identified from years 7 and 8 and we coached them centrally at Castle school.

I wrote the programme and did coach development for staff from the other schools. We became a really strong coaching team and players from every school got great support, meaning by year 9 every school team was really strong.

To give a sense of how strong the programme was, the first 2 years produced pretty much all the players from 2 incredibly successful junior and senior National League teams. Both Castle School and St Augustine’s had teams who went to National School finals.

It was much later we set up the Satellite clubs around Somerset so at this stage the Schools were really important in supporting development.

For several years you were involved in coaching and running residential Summer Basketball camps at Millfield School. What was that like?

I learnt a huge amount in my time helping run those big camps. My learning since has made me realise we were too autocratic, the schedule too intense and the physical exercise punishments we would now regard as ridiculous. We mostly got them right though, fantastic whole child development, creating player, coach and official teaching communities that have lasted a lifetime. They were an important part of accelerated player development too.

At what point did you start playing and coaching for Taunton Tigers?

In 1990 I rocked up at castle school gym to play with a group called Taunton Community Basketball Club who were 8 – 10 guys playing in South West Division 2. There was no proper coach or junior programme at that stage but good guys. Amongst them were Dave Bullock, Shervin Farzaneh and Richard Frost.

I agreed to player/coach after 1 session and we started a junior team one year later. Two years later when Graham Jones arrived at SCAT from London we bought the kit and rebranded as Taunton Tigers. Ian Hunt joined us from Millfield and he coached so I could play and we continued to progress up the local leagues.

The Taunton Tigers club grew quickly during the 1990s and 2000s into one of the biggest in the South. What do you recall about the early years of the club?

I couldn't believe how quickly it grew! At one stage with the schools, junior clubs and then satellite clubs we had over 500 playing members.

A key to the growth was the support staff that helped move the club to a more professional approach and helped provide a sustainable structure. Coaches committed more, numbers grew, standards rose and we attracted outside expertise from people like Cameron Seeley, Graham Jones and Jason Merchant to accelerate player growth. Mel Pattemore, Sue Bullock and Jo Derrick drove the girls and Women's development forward.

Simon Timpson (later U.K. Sports coach lead and now head at LTA) helped Graham Jones and myself set up the Tigers Basketball Academy with huge ambition. Later Tony McCullum and Duncan Pearse took the vision further with a holistic approach to supporting young athletes. I supported SASP to set up Satellite clubs so we could provide playing opportunities for all ability levels. Unsung hero’s like Roy Parsloe would organise and run tournaments, to train and support referees.

Graham Jones worked with Sport England and the Tigers committee to get a new facility at Wellsprings funded and built. Parents of our junior players brought new skills and extraordinary efforts to lay foundations, culture and processes in place. I risk missing many people here but Jim Hartston, Reg Ellis, Paul Carter and Colin Barrell did an extraordinary job in taking events management, team management and finance to a whole new level and collectively ran the club. They were volunteers with a full time commitment.

What was great though through the successes was we never lost the community heart and soul of Tigers. To my mind, we twice made mistakes by wasting valuable resources paying players from outside Somerset. But it was very special when 500 members of the Basketball community would come together at Wellsprings to watch some local lads beating teams with professional players, Richard Frost (England Basketball commentator of the Year) on the mic, celebrating how far we had come since 1990 in the dusty old Castle gym.

Now you can see the full cycle of legacy we built. The satellite clubs we helped establish have senior teams. The coaches of these and college teams are former junior players. Matt Nolan and Gary Carter run a successful Junior Tigers programme with support from old and new. Somerset Basketball is still broad but not as tall as it used to be. We have lost some special people along the way but the culture and people are still around changing people's lives and shaping different paths for young people.

Can you talk about your involvement with setting up the Tigers Women’s National League teams?

It was really positive learning experience for me. There was a strong core of former academy players that had very good basketball IQ and great defence. They lacked height, experience and apart from Becky Brindley, no recognised scorers at that level. Kelly Fitzpatrick and Jo Derrick solved all those problems and meant they could enjoy a competitive experience in a strong National Division 2.

Kelly came over with a work permit to support my first business Seriousball. She was a really positive and influential character and the younger players loved her. Jo was already a National League Division 1 player with Plymouth and she too had the respect and strong relationships with other players.

Jo was the most determined and intense player I have ever coached, male or female, and had an extraordinary capacity to learn anything new. Jo got injured badly very early and helped the coaching staff. It was a really fun experience and amazing that 200+ would turn up to watch the team in Taunton. I truly believe we would have won everything had Jo stayed fit.

I learnt a massive amount as a coach around personalisation. My strength and weakness was that I delivered exactly the same as when coaching men. My high expectations and ambition was great for some players but I failed to develop others as I had a lack of empathy or understanding of their specific learning needs.

Jim Hartston specifically was a huge support and with other volunteers really made the programme work.

In 2005 you helped form a new National League Men's team, made up of players who came up through the junior programme, alongside veterans Graham Jones and Dave Bullock. You were head coach for the next 4 years, and led the team to back-to-back promotions to the top-flight of National League, were Division 2 play-off runners up and the recipient of England Basketball’s Coach of the year award. What was this experience like?

It was a really special time for me. I'm convinced my best talents are around young player development but to coach a national league men's team made up of players I'd coached as juniors, with my best mate Graham Jones alongside me, was an extraordinary opportunity.

When we started the project a friend literally laughed when I suggested the aim was to make the Division 1 play-offs in 5 years. We achieved that in 4 years of course and overcame doubters from outside and inside the club. I felt very strongly from the start that it would only be local club players involved.

We received lots of praise for achieving what we did as a purely amateur team with limited budget and training time. I had no doubts we could compete at the highest level and most of the players didn't either. I'm very proud of what we achieved but truth is we had very good players capable of developing and fantastic camaraderie within the team.

The volunteers we had around the team set up a very professional home match day that became a major community event with regularly 400 plus people attending matches. We had some incredible people supporting the team who performed management duties and gave up massive amounts of time to help out with organisation, promotion, fund raising, driving, fitness coaching and plenty more.

Early on people wanted to give me advice on how to win easier and better, but we always had the long term in mind. Right from the start it was about developing a way to play to win games 3 or 4 years later against the best teams. Everyone told us we were too small but we made it work to our advantage with various pressure defences and fast break Basketball.

After we were promoted from Division 3 the Tigers board actually voted against us going up with consensus that we had reached our peak and were too small to go up. Even some of our own staff were against playing Division 2 with the same squad. I had to fight really hard to convince everyone and then to prove the point using an even smaller line up, without Dave Bullock who helped us out in the earlier years, then by changing to play 3 guards. Our players sometimes couldn't match up directly with the opposition big guys but it didn't matter, they could do things the others teams hadn't planned for.

The ‘pace and space’ approach is really common now even in the NBA but back then bigger, more experienced teams couldn't cope against us. Coupled with trap and rotate defences we could create a game we could win. It took a long time to perfect and players themselves had their doubts from time to time. But in the second half of our season in Division 2 it properly clicked. We were 4-4 in the league and already feeling pleased with ourselves but then embarked on a run of 16-1 that took us all the way to the play-off final.

The final against Northumbria was one of my few regrets. I rotated the squad in the first half as always and played a fast pace game. We weren't great but had opened up a 10-point lead. In the second half though, I got tight with the team, kept the established players in too long and simply got it wrong by going away from what we had worked on. Our journey continued into Division 1 where we frustrated and competed with the best, finishing 8th and making the playoffs a year earlier than promised.

My final season with the team was a strange one and happens in all sports when the fragile team chemistry breaks down. The zero cumulative objective feedback that competition provides will see that season as a failure, but nobody will convince me that alongside coaching the young Women's National league team it was not my biggest achievement at senior level. Just as the Coach of the year Award was misleading so was this.

We competed and regularly got within 10 points of the very best teams with a squad of players from the area. What we achieved was nothing less than amazing. The loyalty of the coaching and support staff through challenging times was amazing!

Somerset basketball was and is all about providing the best possible opportunities and experiences for all young players in our community. There is still the legacy of a strong local league and good, well-supported, junior clubs and programmes.

You’ve mentioned that you didn’t agree with the club paying players or bringing them in from outside but do you think there was any merit to this approach? Over the years, non-local players became valuable team members and its fair to say those teams would have lost more games without them.

If you take winning games as a target that always will disturb and contaminate decision-making. Is the aim of a community club to provide the best possible sustainable opportunities for its members or to try and win more games in the current year?

We always tried to win as many games as possible but not at the expense of compromising principles and long term objectives. We had a team good enough to easily win Division 3 but I always made a call to develop behaviours and look after a larger group of players for the future. It's much tougher to do it that way but much more rewarding.

I brought in a player to support the Tigers National League Women's team. The rationale was to provide a role model, additional coaching and support for the younger players and to make us competitive. I really liked her, it was a great year, she invited me to her wedding, she is still friends with many of the players now. It was the wrong call in the long-term interest of the club.

Any player brought in will take minutes off players who have trained with the club for years and after they have gone the connection with the community goes. Not a week goes by when someone in Taunton, in a shop, a pub or this morning my dentist, doesn't ask me about the Tigers. They can't ask the players who have left those questions.

Since the 2011/12 season when Taunton Tigers fielded a team in Division 3, there hasn’t been any senior National League teams, male or female. Do you think this is because of a natural gap in players/team staff in the area or other reasons?

I agree with most that there tends to be a cycle. However the end of that cycle, on two occasions for the Men's senior team, for me was caused by paying or engaging players from outside the area or country. The clarity of our family club values gave us a strong united community feel that players, volunteers and supporters can all embrace with a sense of belonging. When these objectives become compromised or contaminated, the disconnect will eventually lead to cracks.

There are significant costs to running National League teams at all ages and its common for teams to rely on player contributions, even at the higher levels and in addition to volunteer fund raising efforts. Do you think this is a sustainable model for clubs and do other sports face similar issues?

It's a common problem with all high performance sports and teams that are below top professional level. When the club is run well though and engages the whole community, it can be a huge opportunity and a really rewarding process.

There was period for the club under the guidance of Colin Barrell, Duncan Pearse and a whole bunch of quality volunteers that everyone pulled together. The players and local sponsors did some really great fundraising and the marketing people coupled with a fabulous inclusive environment meant big crowds and good gate receipts.

There has been a pathetic assumption at British National League level that you need to pay players and coaches.

During my time as head coach of National League teams I was never paid and none of the players were. At the time I always thought it was ethically unjustified to pay anyone when so many volunteered and most members contributing themselves to be the club. It becomes divisive and disruptive. It even niggled me that we paid our own table officials, although I was personally happy to buy the commentator a beer!

Now I have successfully run a national business I understand even more it's financial suicide and a complete nonsense to pay players when there is clearly no budget for it or at least a huge opportunity cost. There simply is no return for your money, and our biggest crowds were when we only had local players.

I still get a knot in my stomach thinking about the committee meetings in days we were in serious debt. At one of the most exciting times of the club with the new academy programme, we spent 75%+ of every meeting discussing debt management following a year of paying players.

Some will argue that around the Country some foreign players have put back into the community and have earned their salaries from doing paid work for externals. Well then they weren't professional basketball players and they didn't cost the club.

Having coached successful national league teams and been involved with running a large club, what do you see as the main challenges for UK Basketball clubs wanting to grow and be sustainable?

It would be amazing to see what proportion of British clubs budgets for senior teams are paid to second-rate American players. I would guess close to 75% for many. Imagine if that was ploughed into junior members and club development over the years?

Then from a national and political perspective we choose as a country to pay over £4million for every Olympic medal in already privileged sports like equestrian, rowing and sailing instead of the money supporting thousands of young players in the world's most diverse sport. £13million for each medal in winter sports could be used to revolutionise opportunities for children in cities and rural areas with social and economic benefits to all. It's crazy but we love cheering on a German dancing horse or someone lying down on a tray with a Union Jack somewhere on the kit!

What advise would you give to someone interested in starting a Basketball club?

1. Only work with passionate volunteers who have an investment in long-term sustainable success.
2. Never have any targets around playing performance with junior sections, competition is a zero cumulative. Happy children, large numbers, distal measures around retention in the sport should be key aims.
3. All of the above cannot be achieved without high quality coaches who shares the clubs aims.
4. It's impossible to ignore financial stability and prudence. You have a responsibility to get it right.

In 2008 you established the Create Development business with the goal of engaging and inspiring young people in and through PE and Sport. Can you explain what Create Development does and your goals for the future?

Our focus is on ‘creating positive relationships with physical activity for life’.

We support primary teachers and coaches working with 4 – 11year olds to teach differently, developing teaching habits to positively change children's behaviours. Over 4000 schools in the UK use the inclusive ‘real PE’ approach and we have run courses in another 12 countries.

My last professional challenge is around getting families playing and learning together in physical activity. I'm particularly interested in social inclusion. ‘real play’ is a product and approach Create are developing to reach 10,000 families in the next year.

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. It’s great to learn about the history of Basketball in the area and get the perspective from someone who helped establish the community from the very beginning.