Through sacrifice, volunteering, helping wherever he could, including taking a course on how to properly tape an injured ankle, as well as taking up every coaching role, Broadmore has done it all at Barking Abbey.
And now this season, he can call himself the Barking Abbey head coach, taking over from long time playcaller James Vear, who focuses more on his position at the academy as a director of basketball as well as becoming the coach of the NBL4 team.
“It’s not properly sunk in yet,” Broadmore said.
“However, what I do know is that I have been incredibly blessed with the people giving me this opportunity and now I want to repay them by showing them that I can do this.
“I want to show the previous head coaches, James Vear and Lloyd Gardner, what I have taken on board from them and I want the players I am with this season to perform to the absolute best of their ability, be consistent and be proud.
“Me as a head coach though … yeah it hasn’t sunk in yet.”
Sacrifice though for the Barking Abbey head coach came in the form of countless hours on the road, training and playing for the Reading Rockets where he enjoyed a lot of junior success playing alongside their greats such as Dan Carter and Daniel McKay.
But Broadmore wouldn’t have had it any other way as its allowed him to flourish as an elite level coach, allowing him to run his own business The Secret Trainer, where he works out a list of players including Carl Wheatle, Gabe Olaseni, Akwasi Yeboah, Savannah Wilkinson and Shanice Beckford-Norton.
Broadmore, though, has never forgotten the people that have been his day ones.
“If it wasn’t for my mum, driving me and my parents being supportive, I wouldn’t be where I am now, they made it work,” Broadmore said.
“Obviously Matt Johnson, Danny Carter’s mum, Janice, were like extended family. They helped me in so many ways, both with accommodation and finances. They were amazing.”
And now following a basketball career spanning two decades, that has also seen him part of the London Lions women fold during their early dominance in the WBBL and first season in the EuroCup Women, he leads Barking Abbey into their NBL2 South adventure this season with a new desire to succeed as a leader.
And with an eye-watering total of 24 national championships as a coach, he is on the path to success.
“I want these young guys to succeed in their careers and to make them better players, this is what we do at Barking Abbey,” Broadmore said.
“Whether it’s EABL or NBL, we want to compete, and I want my guys to improve after every practice and every game.”
Born into a family of football fanatics, Broadmore’s early years were naturally dominated by the sport.
His uncle was a scout at Arsenal and West Ham and his cousin is a co-owner of renowned sports agency Stella Group, who handle Premier League and Champions League footballers.
But away from the glitz and glamour that elite professional football brings, Broadmore was closer to home.
“I played for Southend United in their centre of excellence. I started playing there when I was nine,” he said.
But it was when he went to secondary school that he picked up the basketball bug and it was his PE teacher that influenced him to take up the sport.
“I first started picking up a basketball when I was 12 I think,” Broadmore recalls.
“I obviously wasn’t very good to start, and my PE teacher kept telling me that I should play basketball.
“I was at secondary school in year nine I was actually good at basketball, scoring more points, didn’t feel out of place, and I started to have some good games.
“I remember being at Southend when I was 14 and I used to pick up the football and roll it around my arms and bounce it through my legs and suddenly, rather than going to play football in the park, I would play basketball instead.
“I ended up getting released from Southend because I wasn’t as good as I once was and I was still quite young and my whole family is all about football.
“My dad still wanted me to play football so I ended up playing for Ridgeway Rovers, which is where David Beckham and Harry Kane played when they were juniors and the level was just awful and I didn’t want to do it, I wanted to play basketball.”
Rikki’s father, Tony, supported his decision, but being a football fan, he was upset by his son’s choice. Broadmore admits that he had only seen his dad cry twice: when his wife – Rikki’s mother – died and when his son quit football.
Before her passing though, Rikki’s mother, Linda, was a constant support network to his basketball odyssey, taking him to practices where he played as a junior for the Baddow Eagles, a team out of Chelmsford, and it there where Broadmore got his first break.
“I didn’t get many minutes but absolutely loved it at Baddow Eagles,” Broadmore said.
“Admittedly, in my under-15 year, I didn’t really play that much, but there was a coach there called Adrian Heathfield who was one of the coaches for a camp in Millfield so he told me to go the camp in Millfield, my mum was fine with it, booked me on for a week.
“Funnily enough, Matt Johnson was my head coach at Millfield and he approached me and wanted me to play for Reading Rockets but my parents both said no.”
With Rikki’s parents holding down full-time jobs, driving him to practice, the prospect of a near 200-mile round trip from their home in Canvey Island to Berkshire was too much for them.
But they eventually relented and Broadmore trained harder than ever and achieved a lot of success with the Rockets at junior level, winning all titles that came their way before a former Reading player approached Rikki with an offer.
“Lloyd Gardner, who I think was still playing for Reading at the time came up to me and told me about a first of its kind academy starting in Barking, here’s an application form, you should check it out,” revealed Broadmore.
“I thought about it, it was much closer than Reading. So I spoke to my mum, filled out the application, went to the trials and ended up getting selected out of 40 players and my first year of Sixth Form, I was travelling to Barking.”
Broadmore went on to enjoy a spell at the Kent Crusaders in between under the tutorage of Jesse Sazant, but he admits that coaching at that point had never entered his mind until he tore his ACL during practice with the Crusaders.
“I had a contract with Crusaders where I had to coach the local schools along with my playing duties, so while I was rehabbing my knee, I did that and did some assistant coaching too,” reveals Broadmore.
It took a while for him to get the coaching itch, as he desperately wanted to continue playing. However, the bug finally caught him in 2010.
Gardner approached Rikki to do an apprenticeship scheme at Barking. Broadmore, still living with his parents, consulted them about the offer and they agreed to help fund his new venture.
A venture that has worked out for him and one he is forever thankful for doing.
“Without people like Jesse Sazant, James Vear, Lloyd Gardner, Mark Clark, Lauren Milligan, Matt Johnson and all the coaches I’ve known, I wouldn’t be here,” Broadmore smiles.
“I have been truly blessed to be part of this great sport. I really have.”
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Words by John Hobbs
Main image credit - Eddy Lartey
