Such was Gareth Murray’s connection with Caledonia Gladiators, and all the team’s previous iterations, if you cut him open, you’d likely find the club’s badge running through him.

Almost two decades with Scotland’s sole men’s professional basketball team has ensured Murray’s name is synonymous with the club.

Which is why Murray entering the new year having relocated a thousand-or-so miles from what’s long been considered his natural basketball habitat was something he would never have predicted.

Murray’s first appearance for Caledonia Gladiators, or Scottish Rocks as they were named when the 40-year-old first joined them, came nearly two decades ago, in 2006.

Over the years, the Arbroath native became a true great of the club, becoming one of the side’s best-ever players, before moving into management to become Caledonia Gladiators’ head coach in 2020.

His greatest achievement for the club came in 2023 when he led his side to victory in the BBL Trophy, securing the club’s first silverware for 20 years - but elite sport can be a brutal business, as Murray is all too aware.

Last November, despite having led Gladiators to top-four finishes in the BBL in the previous two seasons, Murray was unceremoniously fired from his role as head coach.

His sacking came when the club was in the midst of a dire run of form and were languishing towards the foot of the league table but few, including Murray himself, realised just how perilous his role as head coach was.

“I was a bit surprised because I didn't have any indications from anybody they weren't happy,” he says, reflecting upon his firing.

“Obviously, I was disappointed we weren't winning games but at the time, we were playing a lot - sometimes three games in a week.

“So I was like, right, let's try to get through this period, have a break and then we can get going again.

“But then I was fired before we could rediscover our form.

“I was disappointed, obviously, because I’d put a lot of time and effort into the club. I’d been successful the way I was doing things and I thought I could continue bringing success to the club.

“We were going through a rough patch but I think they could have given me a bit more time to sort the team out.”

(Image: Colin Mearns) Following his removal as head coach, Murray was initially moved to oversee the club’s high-performance programme - effectively becoming the academy coach - but soon an offer came to him that he couldn’t refuse.

Just weeks after being fired, Murray was appointed head coach of BC Prievidza, which explains why his Christmas and new year were spent in Slovakia.

With his wife and daughter remaining in Scotland, Murray admits it wasn’t an entirely straightforward decision to relocate but the pull of top-level basketball was just too strong for him to resist.

“When I got fired in November, I was like, okay, what do I do now? Do I just stay at Caledonia and do the academy? But then this opportunity came up and it sounded like a good club to go to,” he says.

“If I’d stayed and coached at the Gladiators academy, I’d not have the stress and excitement of game day.

“I'd been with Caledonia as a player and a coach for 18 years, so it was difficult to leave.

“But my whole adult life has been about basketball - always chasing the next game and thinking about how to get better and I wasn't ready to give that up yet. So I decided, no, let's take this job  with Prievidza and see what happens.”

The change of lifestyle is stark but the fact basketball is integral to the city he now calls home has made the transition far smoother than it might have been.

“This is a team with high expectations.  And it's a team that has the best crowd in the whole league -  we average just over 2,000 a game,” he says.

“Prievidza is a small city, 45,000 people, but it's a basketball city, so everybody's involved in the club. The atmosphere within the city is basically based on how well the basketball team is doing.”

Murray made a dream start with his new club, winning the first eight games of his tenure, which propelled BC Prievidza from seventh in the Slovakian Extraliga into fourth place, although they've now dropped back to fifth, and that run did, admits Murray, work wonders when it came to cementing his new players’ faith in him.

“We started winning as soon as I arrived and so the guys start to believe in what they could do. And they start to trust you as a coach as well,” he says.

“When you arrive at a new club, the players might believe what you tell them and they might not, but when you start winning, they're like, okay, this guy is not talking crazy, he actually knows what he's doing. So that gives you confidence as well.”

Murray has signed an 18-month contract with BC Prievidza, after which, he admits he’s not even contemplated in which direction his career may take him.

Until then, however, he’s focused on bringing the same kind of success to Prievidza that he helped Caledonia Gladiators achieve.

“The goal for the club is to be in Europe again next year,” he says.

“And domestically, we want to be one of the top two teams in this league.

“From there, who knows? I might get a job somewhere else, I might not.

“But this job is a turning point for me.”