It has been a rather eventful season for the Caledonia Gladiators. It started with a change in ownership as Steve and Alison Timoney took the reins of the Scotland-based BBL outfit, and it wasn’t long before a rebrand followed for the team formerly known as the Glasgow Rocks. A strong league campaign has resulted in the Scots occupying fourth place in the standings and earlier this month the club announced that an all-singing, all-dancing £20million facility is on the way – one they hope will be amongst the continent’s best.
The Gladiators are a team on the rise with heady aspirations and there is no better time to prove those hopes are well-placed than this afternoon at Glasgow’s Emirates Arena. They will face Cheshire Phoenix on home turf with the BBL Trophy up for grabs and for a club that has only ever won one honour – the BBL play-offs in 2002/03 – it is an opportunity not to be sniffed at.
For Jonny Bunyan, the club’s rapid ascent of late is scarcely believable. Now in his twelfth season, the captain has experienced his fair share of heart-breaking lows in that time and is desperate to taste success with his team-mates with the club in the best shape it has ever been.
“One hundred per cent,” Bunyan concurs. “There is no doubt about it. There are a lot of things happening at the club and for people that have been there for a long time, like myself and Gareth [Murray, the head coach], we sometimes look at each other and go ‘is this actually real?’.
“It’s hard to believe this is all happening. We have struggled for so long – well, not struggled, but we have had to make do with quite little. And now it seems like we are going to be given a great chance to push the club forward in so many ways on and off the court.
“We are developing plans for future generations of Scottish basketball and sometimes you just stop and pinch yourself. There is no better place for the club to be moving forward. It is all really exciting and I think a surprise championship – or a title that wasn’t expected – would be just another boost to what is a growing organisation.
“You don’t want to get caught up in ‘it’s written in the stars’ because a sure-fire way to lose the game is to think that it’s meant to be. So we can’t be thinking like that but from a bigger perspective, it’s been 20 years since the Rocks last won a Championship.
“This is potentially going to be the last BBL Trophy final that’s held at the Arena, it’s the last season that we will be at the Emirates. There are a lot of outside factors that would contribute to this being a very special moment if we did manage to pull it off.”
Bunyan does not have to look far for advice about the best way to handle the big occasion. As the team’s captain, the 30-year-old from Falkirk knows he will assume extra responsibility in Glasgow’s east end but luckily for him, he had just the man to turn to.
His older brother, Keith, was an important part of the side that triumphed in the BBL play-offs two decades ago and Bunyan has been picking his brain this week. This is no sibling rivalry where the pair are constantly trying to out-do each other, though.
BBL | A historic weekend ahead 👀...#KnowOurName #WeAreCaledonia #GoGladiators #BritishBasketball pic.twitter.com/8Kh0T0W9eg
— Caledonia Gladiators (@Cal_Gladiators) March 24, 2023
“Keith was in the team, I think it was maybe his fourth season with the Rocks back then,” Bunyan said of his older brother. “They were the Scottish Rocks back then. They were very early on in their days at Braehead.
“There is a lot of history with my family and the club. I have always hoped that at some point in my career that I would get a chance to win a championship to be alongside him and I think there is something quite nice about the two championship-winning teams each having a brother in it. That’s something that would mean a lot to me.
“There are no bragging rights – there has been no bigger supporter of my career than my brother. We can have a laugh and a joke about it a little bit but it’s different when he has always been my No.1 supporter, always pushing me along with the rest of my family. It would be good to have a tie!
“We had a chat earlier in the week through in Falkirk. He actually gave me some pretty good advice about things to say in the pre-game talk and the things that I should be keeping people aware of as the captain of the team. Even when you think you know it all after 12 years, one afternoon with your brother and you pick up something else. I was pretty happy with what he told me.”
Bunyan certainly won’t be short of motivation this afternoon. A long-serving player at a club on the brink of an exciting new chapter, there are few players that bridge the gap between the Caledonia Gladiators’ humble beginnings and the promise that the future holds quite like him. Yes, previous final appearances have ended in defeat but this one just feels different for Bunyan.
“This year we definitely have a bit more depth in our team; we go eight or nine players deep on the bench and they are all very high quality players,” Bunyan reasoned. “That is something that we can look at as a wee bit of a difference to past years. And also the fact it is in Glasgow.
“Honestly, it would mean pretty much everything. I love the club as an organisation and I’ve loved every part of it. I have loved the Rocks, the Gladiators. I love the new direction the club is going in and everyone that’s involved in the club.
“The only thing that has really been missing over all these years – years of good team-mates, good coaches, good managers, whoever you mention – is that we have not managed to get that title. It would mean the world to me but I want it for Gareth. I want it for Fraser Malcolm. I want it for the owners in the background and the team managers and the general managers.
“I even want it for people who helped us get there – people like Ian Reid, who was the owner years ago, and Duncan Smillie, who got us through really difficult times with Covid and everything else. There have been so many people that have kept this club not only alive but thriving in its own way and now that we are maybe set to take off to bigger things, it would be really nice to have win this championship this year while there is still a memory of Glasgow Rocks.”
