Sports Coaching

Performance Coaching for the Sporting World

The margins between good and great are fine. Yew Tree Coaching brings the science of performance and the craft of coaching together to help you find your edge.

Where sport science meets coaching excellence

Long before a 25-year career in global financial services, sport was everything. Lee holds a BSc (Hons) in Sports Science and Sport Psychology from the University of Wales, Bangor — an academic foundation he has never left behind.

Today, that foundation underpins Lee's work coaching in the sporting world, working with elite footballers, managers and coaching staff at the highest levels of the game. The same principles that create great leaders in business — psychological safety, self-awareness, resilience, clarity of purpose, the ability to perform under pressure — are the ones that separate good from exceptional in sport.

And having lived and coached across both worlds, Lee is uniquely placed to bridge them.

Two worlds. One set of principles.

The best corporate leaders and the best sporting performers share more than you might think.

Principles from the pitch

  • Performing under intense pressure
  • Resilience through setbacks and failure
  • Psychological safety within a team
  • Individual accountability to a collective goal
  • The mental disciplines of preparation and recovery
  • Coaching and being coached

Lessons from the boardroom

  • Navigating ambiguity and complexity
  • Leading through change and uncertainty
  • Building trust across diverse teams
  • Communication and influence at all levels
  • Long-term strategy alongside short-term delivery
  • The cost of poor psychological safety — and how to fix it

Coaching at the highest levels of the game

Lee works primarily within football, with experience at elite international level.

⚽ Elite Players

Working with footballers competing at elite and international level, supporting performance, mindset, confidence and navigating the pressures unique to sport at the top of the game.

All sessions are strictly confidential — a safe space to be honest about what's really going on.

🏆 Managers & Coaching Staff

The best managers are also the best leaders. Lee coaches managers and coaching staff on the leadership, communication and psychological dimensions of performing in high-pressure roles within elite sporting environments.

🔄 Transition Coaching in Sport

Moving clubs. Returning from injury. International call-ups. Retirement and post-playing career transitions. Sport is full of pivotal moments that require more than technical skill to navigate.

Lee provides the coaching support to make those transitions successfully.

🧠 Performance Under Pressure

Penalty shoot-outs. High-stakes matches. Selection battles. Media scrutiny. The mental edge is often what makes the difference when the physical and technical are equal.

Lee works with players and coaches to develop the psychological resilience and clarity to perform when it matters most.

What's said here, stays here

Coaching in the sporting world requires absolute discretion. All sessions with Lee are strictly confidential. Clients are never named without explicit permission, and the coaching relationship is built entirely on trust.

Many of Lee's sporting clients value this confidentiality above all else — knowing they have a genuinely safe space to be honest about their challenges, doubts and ambitions.

Want to talk about your performance?

Book a free, no-obligation discovery call. A conversation costs nothing — but it might be the most important one you have this season.

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