Where I can help.
For clubs, coaching staff and parent groups who want to develop the player and the person together. Talks, workshops and consulting, on site or online.
The game as the model
How a club plays, reads players and moves them.
One way of playing from the youngest teams to the oldest, written down and taught on film, with a talent process that does not depend on one coach's opinion.
- One way of playing, built on the four moments, CDE, and team and individual intentions
- A video teaching library, so coaches can watch the model, not only read it
- The four coaching pillars as the session standard
- A defined process for moving players between teams
- Phase leads who hold the standard across age groups
Coach development
Start from what coaches actually do.
Coach education sticks when it starts from the coach's own sessions.
In a workshop called Four Pillars in Practice, coaches estimated their own ball rolling time anywhere from 58 to 90 per cent. Few had timed it, and the ones who had came in lower. So the session moved from the number to the method: time the stoppages, agree what counts, and know when less ball rolling time is the right call.
A follow-up, The Player in the Game, took the same approach to child development: what the research on working memory, Piaget, Erikson and development windows supports, and where it runs out.
- Workshops built around your coaches' own sessions
- An evaluation rubric and individual development plans for staff
- A documentation library and an annual development calendar
Team culture workshops
A value keeps its meaning only when a routine carries it.
As a club grows, culture stops travelling by proximity. It has to travel through routines a new staff member can see in their first week.
The workshops follow Vanessa Urch Druskat's research in The Emotionally Intelligent Team (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025). A short snapshot survey comes first. Leadership goes through the process before any staff group. In every room the most senior voice speaks last, and each team writes its own norms. A reassessment closes the cycle.
A standing check-in, and the norms the team says matter most.
Two or three care norms with a time and a place.
The team's own line, the alternatives it prefers, and how feedback is given.
What the team actually adopted, written down, with owners.
Helping players arrive ready to perform.
HeadCoach is a performance and readiness platform for athletes, coaches and clubs. It started as the system I used with my own players, became technology in 2020, and is built today by a team that contributes to every part of it. I'm co-founder and President.
Each player starts with a baseline assessment across eight skills. On game and training days the app gives them one performance strategy to use, and short check-ins on mood, energy and readiness give a club a read on how its players are arriving before games.
Bring it to your club.
Tell me who is in the room and what you want them to leave with. In twenty minutes we'll shape a talk, a workshop or a plan. No pitch, and no obligation.
Book a free intro callUEFA A Licence. Coaching since 2010 in Northern Ireland, Canada, China and the United States.
Or email jonathononeill14@gmail.com