Plymouth Raiders

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Okay, guys, welcome to the first Mindful Movement podcast episode. Today we're joined by Ross Mackenzie, Plymouth Raiders owner and Courier Force Director. Ross, do you want to give a bit of an introduction sort of to yourself?

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Yeah, so I am the owner of a company called Courier Force, we're a same day and specialist logistics provider.

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We operate across the UK into Europe. And we provide time logistics

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to the aviation sector, to medical organizations, manufacturing, and most of what we do is point to point delivery, business to business, a bit like a taxi style man and van courier where people need to get things moved quickly from A to B. And that can be at weekends, weekdays, evenings, anytime. So we plug that hole in logistics and deliveries where normal next day parcel couriers operate within a very strict sort of confine. And where we need things moved for our customers quickly, more efficiently. It could be that there's a grounded aircraft and we have to help our customer ensure that the tooling or the equipment gets from one location to another. I.e. an airport to another airport to enable them to fix and repair the aircraft so that it can get away as quickly as possible. So that's just a snapshot of what we do at Courier Force. But essentially, it puts our customer in complete control of the movement.

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My other business is Plymouth Raiders Basketball Club, celebrating our 40th year. Plymouth Raiders started off as an amateur National League basketball team. Founded in 1983. It rose through Division two, Division one and over the last 15, 16 years to become a Premier League basketball team made up of Americans and so on, import players. The club changed ownership in 2020, just before COVID and the owners of the club during COVID through some ownership problems.

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Potentially some financial mismanagement. The club went into liquidation and I bought the naming rights and the intellectual property back in late 2021 and I've spent much of the last two years getting the Plymouth Raiders legally back to a position where we could re-enter National League competition. We were given approval by the courts 18 months ago and I was able to bring our application back to Basketball England. A new Plymouth Raiders back to National League competition, having to start back in Division three and we rebuilt last summer. New head coach, new team and we currently sit fourth in National League Division three.

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Nearly at the end of the season. Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations on the 40th anniversary. That's really, really great to hear. I've seen that the Raiders are doing some pretty big things at the moment and got some exciting new players potentially lined up for the season ahead.

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So really what I want to establish with this episode is I want to give a bit of an insight to the listeners about your background in basketball, how you got involved and sort of how it's helped you develop in not only your social life, but also potentially your professional life as well as a business owner in Plymouth. So you just tell me a bit more like what, how old were you when you started playing and what was the, who was it that really got you into basketball when you were, when you were growing up? Yeah. So when I was about 12 years old, I was a student at what was King's Tamerton Secondary School in Plymouth and then later became Tamarside and it's now Marine Academy Plymouth.

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So the name of the school has changed a few times over the last few decades. But when I was there, we had a new teacher who was coaching some afterschool clubs in basketball, it was very new to me and the school. And I went along because a friend of mine did. And I was hooked immediately. And we established a brand new school team. I became a player within that. And, and right the way through, as I improved, I was able to become a part of the Plymouth Junior Raiders program at the time in the late 1980s, early 1990s. And really just, just found a sport that I loved, kept me off the streets really and at a very difficult time growing up in your teens, you're looking for different things with lots of potential distractions.

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And it was something that I really did spend so much time and dedicated so much of my private time after school to getting better and better. And I made a whole load of new friends through sport, you know, many of which, you know, 30 odd years old, I'm still very friendly, very good friends with. So it's a sport that's given me an awful lot socially, personally, and personal development. Yeah. From that point of view. And really that journey through being a member of the Plymouth Raiders as a junior and then making the first team in 1996.

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Really laid the foundations for a lot of what's followed. So yeah, so it's been a really, really big, important period of my life.

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I went away from the game after I finished university in the late 1990s.

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Got into transport. And in 2007, early 2008, I established Courier Force. And I had been away from basketball for maybe sort of 8 to 10 years. And then I became a sponsor of the Plymouth Raiders team. And sort of fell in love again with basketball. And that continued for another several years. And one of my former colleagues, associates, we had a conversation in 2017.

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Because the current owner of the Plymouth Raiders at that time was a senior gentleman, possibly looking to take a step back. So we made an offer to try and take the club forward in some way. And former player, friend, Richard, we came together to take over the Plymouth Raiders from Bob, who then retired.

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So the whole thing's come in full circle, really, over the past 30-something years. From a junior player, to establishing my own business, and then being able to give back and get involved with the club in a different way to help, you know, keep it moving into the future. So yeah, my involvement with basketball and in particular the Plymouth Raiders has been a long, long journey.

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Yeah. So what was that like, actually, getting onto the team, you know, after rising up through the sort of development programmes.

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What was that like? Was it sort of like a dream? Yeah it's hugely rewarding because um when you dedicate so much of your time to something and you've got that sort of focus you want to be the best and you're also in competition with a number of other people who also have the same ambition and one thing changed for me in 1993 was as a sort of 16 year old at the time we had a brand new head coach come to Plymouth who took over the junior program and he walked into our practice one Tuesday evening and pretty much led the session and

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things were never the same again he was a very strong disciplinarian he took a bunch of kids as we were at the time and we were okay basketball players but he turned us into very very good basketball players he really focused on improving each and every one of us and as we got better in the months ahead we started to play national competitions that he would organize for us to go on and compete against other teams in other areas we finished I think we finished third in the national under 18 championships he took us on in 1993 he took us to Boston in America to an NBA camp run by some Boston Celtics players

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so we had a chance to pit ourselves against some American players of the same age and we really held up pretty well actually and we were over in America for over three weeks playing basketball several hours a day every single day and over that period of time we just became going really really good colleagues friends basketball players we were an exceptional team and as it happened at the time that coach a bit became the head coach of the Plymouth raiders he was invited to take over the main team and he promoted some of us from his junior program into the first team the raiders so

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to have someone like that believe in you and back you and push you and so on was was incredible and I remain in contact with coach Vic even today you know these are people that come along in your life a very inspirational people often it happens by accident so you don't often see these people arrive or where they come from but this chap just arrived in Plymouth was invited to come and get involved and as I say you know for me my life changed that

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Tuesday evening in September 1993 I think it probably was so yeah so it was a really really incredible time and took as I say it took what we were doing in the years before just another big step up and step up so yeah you credit people like that with leaving you know an indelible mark on your career personally and professionally so I was very lucky that I had people like Vic and also maybe frank Pocock who was my teacher who laid on that very first basketball class when I was 12 years old because without Frank coming to the school without Frank you know setting

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this up for us kids who knew nothing about basketball at the time um and opening our eyes to a new sport other than rugby and football and so on so again you know people like Frank who I again still very much keep in contact with he comes to my Raiders games now which is amazing he's now in his mid 80s and the fact that Frank has been on this journey being able to watch as I've been able to come through and rebuild the Plymouth Raiders and so on is you know again incredibly rewarding for the people that backed me when I was younger for me to be able to give something back

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to them and for you know for me to continue the legacy because that's really what this is about continuing a 40-year-old legacy so there is a weight of expectation on me to continue this into the future so yeah it's a huge responsibility. Yeah and I mean what a fantastic opportunity as well for you know someone some of your age at the time getting the chance to go and play with some of the Boston Celtics in America so amazing yeah it really was so yeah I've been very lucky but there's been a lot of hard work behind the scenes a lot of dedication to being as good as you can be and yeah. So yeah I mean you've had a pretty long career in the sport of basketball both as a player and now as the owner of the club so what is it that you enjoy most about the sport is it like the friends you've made, supporters now or a bit of both what what is it that keeps you in the game

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the friends I've made have just been lifelong friends and some of them I've been able to bring back as part of the club so a number of our assistant coaches around the team people that I grew up with and wanted to help once you get involved the volunteers that really help us bring game day together people who are very passionate about the club I've only really had a couple of months understood that actually when the Raiders disappeared and went out of business during covid the impact that had the mental impact that had on so many people who had invested so much of their life growing up following the Raiders as fans you know sports clubs and teams have really big fan bases and the Plymouth Raiders have an exceptionally strong fan base so you know I've had people come to me and say what it's meant to them that

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they've been able to bring the Raiders back and how it's given some people a real sense of purpose and they've been able to get involved and come and help us game day volunteers and club volunteers and and so on so it's been quite incredible to see the reception that bringing the Plymouth Raiders has had on so many people on their well-being and as I say, something so emotionally charged

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positive difference to so many people so for me that's probably been the most most rewarding thing from from all of this so yeah it's been it's been fantastic. Did you ever imagine when you're a player that you'd be in the position that you're in now running well no no no never also as well is that you never know which direction life will take you in I wouldn't have known that answering an advert to join a party or courier company at the time I knew nothing about transport would six years later lead me to set my own transport company up but I learned an awful lot working for my boss at the time and he put a lot of trust in me and that manifested with me being able to set CourierForce up six years after that so and then CourierForce then allowed me as CourierForce became you know reasonably successful in its own right to then

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become the owner of the Plymouth Raiders and take me on this full circle journey back in so many ways so yeah if I look back 20 years ago there's no way I could have potentially seen the way some of this would have come together at the time but opportunities present themselves doors open along the way and I guess whether you choose to walk through that door sometimes take a risk because of course there's risk attached to these things it's not you know sometimes you just have to follow your gut instinct, not be irresponsible but you have to you know you have to take a calculated gamble and I think all the things that I've done have been very calculated I'm not naturally a risky person but

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certainly when an opportunity presents itself you have to realise that you know you have to go for it sometimes and on the some of the big key decisions that I've taken they were ones that had to be taken reasonably quickly and react so yeah there wasn't long-term planning with some of the things simply because I've had to just follow as events have unfolded and and that's sometimes how life works out isn't it? Yeah yeah really interesting yeah let's let's move on a little bit and talk about sort of the mental well-being side of playing basketball and sort of your experiences sort of growing up with the sport so how did it how did it impact your confidence growing up did it improve your confidence what was it like playing with a playing with a team and I guess you know you talked about your friends as well that you made a massive confidence building

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massive confidence builder. I developed a new circle of friends who all shared the sort of same common goals that I had within a team environment so that really brings you together with a group of other people which was really something I hadn't had before so that was a very positive sort of advancement the fact that I suddenly thought I belonged to something because it was part of a team and I had a role to play in that team and as I got better as a player I became a key player in that team so I had a key role so you know there are expectations made of you and when you're a player and certainly as I was growing up through the junior Raiders

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and became a key player in that team, you've got responsibilities. And I used to enjoy that responsibility because I knew I had the ability to help us win games. And if I played well, more often than not, the team played well. And so your colleagues respect you because, you know, you are performing at a certain level. So, again, you get the respect and admiration of your peers because they understand you've put the hard work in to get to where you're at. And as that confidence builds, when I was at school, I used to walk down the school corridors and people would know who I was, even people that I didn't know. So around school, even just in my local day-to-day environment, when I was at secondary school, because I was known as a high-level sports person at school, that meant that, you know, people would come and talk to me about it and ask me about it.

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And generally, people seemed interested in that and teachers were interested in that. They would come and talk to me about certain things. So, again, you know, for my confidence, it was phenomenal. That led to me becoming head boy at my secondary school because I am somebody that, you know, likes to be part of a team. I think I'm fairly good at bringing people together.

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And I think it was massively aided by the fact that my personal development

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really came on leaps and bounds because of the responsibility I had within a team environment. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot about people. I learned a lot about how to get on with people because you can't perform in a team unless you have the ability to work closely with people. And you can take those lessons in anything you do, not just sport, but, you know, in business and so on. So if you have the ability to communicate effectively with people, you can do that. That can get you through in life in all manner of industries and places of work.

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So, yeah, the lessons I learned from playing the team sport probably really set me up for so many other things. Yeah, really interesting. So are there any other sort of like aspects of basketball that you think have transferred into your professional life now that you still, you know, utilize on a daily basis, whether you're meeting with clients or, you know, picking up the phone and dealing with stuff like that? I think you develop a tenacious streak where if you want to get better at something or you're a perfectionist at something, and I think I'm a perfectionist. I like things done properly.

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I like the detail. I love the things. So if you're going to do something, I believe that you should do it to the best of your ability.

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And if I'm not, if you could bring people around you, you could do that. And, you know, essentially, like with CourierForce, I've brought people to the business that are maybe better than me at doing certain tasks.

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And I'm the first to acknowledge when, you know, there are things that I'm not so good at. But then you surround yourself with people who are very good at those things. So, again, it's really, really important to understand your own strengths and weaknesses.

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Again, you learn that within a team environment. You know, you're not, you're really in a basketball team. You can maybe be one-fifth of what's happening on the floor. So you have to put your trust in other people to perform their own tasks. And that's the same in business, running a business. You can't micromanage everything. So you have to bring other people in to perform their tasks accordingly. So you're only as good as the people that are around you. And I think that's probably the thing that I learned the most. But being tenacious and pursuing things with that. So I'm trying to get business from a new client

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is very transferable in the way that I was very tenacious at wanting to improve my jump shot or the way that I used to dribble the ball or perform other things. So it really is very sort of three-dimensional in the way that you sort of address these things. But actually, they all come back to the same areas of discipline. You want to get better at something.

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You know where you want to go.

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And you understand that's going to take a certain amount of hard work and tenacity to get there. But not giving up. And certainly in a job like CourierForce,

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a number of the clients that we work with, they took me months and in some cases years of continual knocking on the door. We deal with a big luxury boat manufacturer in Plymouth. And it took me a couple of years to actually get them to come and do business with me. And ultimately, picking up a telephone every few months or occasionally dropping in and this, that and the other. And they were using another company. And you wait for them to maybe not get the service from the other customer. And they start looking around and they'll remember you because you've been knocking on the door for quite a long time up until that point. And that's how I grew up with CourierForce in the early days, just knocking on doors and not giving up and just reminding those clients, if you ever need somebody to step in, you know, we want to be on the end of that call.

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So again, in business, in sport or anything that you're doing is the ability to not give up and to continue to keep pushing forward. Yeah. Consistency is key. Consistency is key. That's the one thing to remember. So let's talk a bit more about the Raiders Development Programme for any of the listeners out there who are interested in learning more or getting involved, getting involved with the sport. So how long has the development programme been running for now? Well, we've just launched in partnership with City College Plymouth our Raiders Development Academy, I should say.

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There was an existing group of young guys down there playing basketball being coached by a chap called George Hatchery, somebody I've known for many, many years. And he's come out of retirement to coach a young group of guys down there. And they were playing under the college banner of City College Basketball. But historically, if you go back pre-COVID, they used to be called the Plymouth Raiders Academy. So they approached me several months ago and said, look, with the Raiders coming back, would it be possible for us to align ourselves back to the Plymouth Raiders? And I said, absolutely. So we've been able to change the name above the door back to Plymouth Raiders Academy.

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We're going to be improving the sports hall down there, so we have a meeting there lined up where we're going down with a decorating team and we're doing a bit of DIY SOS and we're going to jazz the gym up and it's going to look fantastic.

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So, yeah, we're just going to get the whole place ready and hopefully over the summer into next season, we'll pick up some new people. And there's maybe 12 there at the moment. It'd be nice to get that up to sort of 20 people next year down there playing basketball. And year on year, just get more young people. And the plan is the more young people we get down there playing basketball, that will be a natural feeder potentially into the Plymouth Raiders first team as we start identifying young talent players where we can invite to come and practice with us and so on. So the first team, we'll effectively become the driving force for these young people to aspire to. And as I had 25 years ago,

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and there hasn't really been too much of that over the past 10, 15 years. So this is about trying to sort of reset that and create an environment with new Plymouth Raiders. And actually being in the lower echelons of the National League makes what we're doing much more attainable for these young players too. So it's much more, should we say,

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much more of a clear aspiration for an aspiring young player to get into the Plymouth Raiders as we are today. When we were formerly a Premier League team,

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the jump between junior basketball into a Premier League team is so vast, but where we are now that jump potentially is much smaller. So it's a happy accident in many ways that we find ourselves in the National League 3 at the moment. And we want to get to 2 and Division 1, but certainly over the next couple of years, the best young players from places like the Raiders Academy

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really have a great shot of breaking into the team. So that, again, that's another really fantastic achievement for us over the last few months and hopefully will continue to be so. Yeah. So for new people getting involved with basketball, I mean, do they need experience to come along to some of the,

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to some of the, I guess or is it sort of yeah so City College Academy is for 16 plus post-16 so they would to join the academy they would have to have certain standard of basketball behind them so they will be holding their own sort of program over the summer into next season to identify players to join the academy down there so yeah it wouldn't necessarily be an academy for first-timers because there are programs running around Plymouth for under 12s you know under 14s and so on so we would expect that people joining Plymouth Raiders Academy at City College may have already come through that pathway we're not going to set up Plymouth Raiders pathway up at those age groups because that's already being catered for so that would almost be reinventing the wheel and diluting

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what's already there which wouldn't actually be to the betterment of anybody so those guys are doing a fantastic job so we'll leave them to do what they're doing uh and we can offer a post-16 outlet which currently isn't really being serviced so we can hopefully as I say plug that plug that gap. Yeah so can the listeners find out about that on the Plymouth Raiders website or is that more on the City College go to City College and we will be upgrading the website over the summer so very much watch this space

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the City College Plymouth we'll have information about the basketball academy program. Cool okay and the final topic I want to talk about is your advice really on improving mental and physical well-being so yeah I guess you know what do you what's your advice what do you do for improving your mental and physical well-being? Oh I go to the gym four times a week which is important to me because that routine and that staying in reasonable health and fitness has always been a really really big part of my life whether it's playing basketball but I've always went to the gym my parents owned a gym in Plymouth for 20 years back in the 70s and 1980s so growing up in a in a wellness health and fitness environment rubbed off on me and as I say it continues to this day to be a

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very very important aspect of what I do so whether it's your local boxing gym or whether it's your local weights gym I've got a group of friends where I train so again that gives me a different outlet with a different group of people there so not only do I go to the gym there but also I see a lot of familiar faces and it makes the whole experience a little bit more social so that's really good it's one of the few places that I could go to where I probably switch off about about their work I can go to the gym and

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everything for that moment feels much better because I don't generally think about too much other than being at the gym and what I'm doing in that moment so that that for me is a fantastic thing but health fitness you know whether you know you're looking to improve your diet because we know that things like diet is really heavily linked to your well-being whether it's you know not necessarily eating like a saint but just just making sure you're looking after yourself and so much of this comes from confidence so you feel good about yourself you're looking good you feel good that projects in the way that you know that projects in

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the way that many people will feel about themselves and things like social media and things can be very detrimental and harmful to people but certainly you know I think if you're somebody who takes pride in themselves and what they do and they surround themselves with good people as well I think these are all very important things you know surround yourself with good people you've got your best interests at heart and not pay too much attention to the things you see on social media that's probably my advice. Yeah focus focus on improving yourself not worrying about what other people are other people are doing yeah good I like that advice. So would you say that having these strategies in place going to the gym eating well how would you say that impacts your your businesses how does it how does it improve my business it just means I can

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function it means that I can you know my job is 24/7, 7 days a week in what we do as a business so I never switch off I've always got to be mindful that because of the nature of the job that I have that you know somebody might need to reach me on the end of the phone because there's a problem or something's happening so I have to find as I say keeping my mind fairly healthy by doing things like going to the gym or certain things like that it breaks up sort of that time spent thinking about work but yeah it's important that I am reasonably healthy because I wouldn't be able to perform the functions of running my business as I say which at times can be fairly consuming as a self-employed person it's very difficult to switch off from work because there's all different challenges coming at me all the time from different things and as a you know as a business a multiple business owner I've got often very different challenges and things to think about across two different very different businesses. Yeah so on the topic of the gym itself I mean

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as I'm sure you know it can be when you start out in the gym it can be very a very intimidating place and you often don't really know I remember my first time in the gym I had no idea really what I was what I was sort of doing so what would be your advice to people you know wanting to get into the gym but maybe they're a little bit too nervous to sort of start what would you say what would be your advice to that it's actually I see a lot of people come into the gym for the first time where I go and actually people like me in the

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gym when I see somebody new comes at you I'm always have huge admiration for people that I see that I think are quite new because I know most of the people who come out in my gym when I see somebody coming for the first time I always really feel that's such a positive thing it can be very daunting for people to come into a gym for the first time and but trust me there are most of us when we see new people coming to the gym I think that's an amazing thing because we've been in that position I've been in that position where I've walked into somewhere for the first time you feel under confident and you're looking around you think people are looking at you you know for whatever reason you feel very self-conscious walking into an alien environment but trust me that the people that are there share the same challenges and things and often insecurities that that you do when you walk into somewhere for the first time

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so we're all on the same page we're all there for the same reason we're just to try and help ourselves to be a little bit healthier mentally physically and so on so yeah don't walk in anywhere like that unnecessarily feeling intimidated because ultimately you'll quickly realise that the people who are in the gym are actually there for one big common reason and that's to that's to feel as good as possible about yourself and improve ourselves and it's a work it's a work in progress you know none of us ever really fully feel where we want to be so it's one of those things that is always just one step ahead of where we are so we're always feeling under confident we're always feeling that we could do better we're always feeling that you know that there's a way to go because let's be honest none of us are finished articles so when that person comes into the gym for the first time they just have to understand that it's all about levels and we're all in the same position but we're all there to better ourselves

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yeah really interesting I think the I I think the key part as well is just starting just joining a gym and just getting involved you know and just going along I mean the first the first time you go to the gym is always going to be the most sort of uncomfortable I guess isn't it really but but you know once you get over that barrier you sort of you know the next time you go be less exactly uncomfortable and the more you can take a friend if you know someone that wants to come with you safety in numbers

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you know take take somebody with you for the first time if that makes you feel better about going so do whatever works do you know what works for one person won't be the same for somebody else so do what you feel the most comfortable thing to do is if you feel you need somebody like a personal trainer from that particular gym to come and help you for the first time and show you the equipment it might be you go pay somebody uh just to give you like a PT session for the first time or even if you just want the staff member to show you around the gym do that and

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you ring them up and say look when's it going to be a quiet time and so actually you might if you can come in on a morning or come in at a certain time very quiet in here well maybe take that opportunity to go into the gym and have one of the staff show you around and so on so you familiarise you get you get familiar with your surroundings there's nothing worse for a lot of people who feel under confidence walking into an environment where it's round and people in there it's very busy so you know maybe try and get in and take a look around when it's a little bit less

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busy. Yeah so before we wrap this interview up what is if you had to recommend one thing to reduce stress improvements from physical well-being what would it be out of all the things we talked about nutrition exercise exercise allows you to eat cheat foods and bits and bobs in moderation but the sense of well-being that you have from coming out of the gym and so on that's the best feeling there is so I would say if again whether that's boxing whether you do some martial arts or whatever it is you do try something different but participating in a leisure activity that might be going for a run that might be getting on a bike doing something but doing something active will literally change your life okay. Cool and on that note Ross I think we'll uh end it there so thank you for joining today I really appreciate it and we'll speak soon.