Acknowledgements

I will always be indebted to my fellow teachers at Hartcliffe School, Whitefield Fishponds School and Withywood School for helping and encouraging me in my early years, and to all those who actively supported my initiative to create the South Bristol Federation. Teaching is such an undervalued profession, and I didn’t appreciate just how much I had learned from so many until I left.

The vision of Robert Louis-Dreyfus, the former CEO of Adidas International, and Robin Money, Adidas UK, enabled me to go on this journey in coaching. Thank you for supporting me over the last twenty years. Stuart Biddle put up with me and supervised me throughout my PhD at Loughborough University – I would not have made it through without him.

Thanks to Brian Smith, who gave me my first full-time coaching role, at St George (NRL) in Sydney, Australia, and to Brian ‘Box’ O’Shea, the Australian Rugby Union’s High Performance Director. Thanks also to Fran Cotton, British Lions manager on the 1997 tour of South Africa, who gave me massive practical support not only on that tour, but when I joined England as an assistant coach, and to Clive Woodward, who created a unique performance culture that allowed me to be innovative with the England rugby union team.

I will always be grateful to all those rugby players who believed in doing things differently and defying convention to get better, particularly, in my early days, Stuart Barnes, Jonathan Webb and Rob Andrew. Thanks to Jonny Wilkinson for sticking at it through thick and thin for nigh on eighteen years. Golfers Melissa Reid, Padraig Harrington, Brad Kennedy and Francesco Molinari have been great players both to work with and learn from.

The enthusiastic encouragement from both Gordon Lord, the ECB’s director of Elite Coaching, and Kevin Shine allowed me to challenge the convention in cricket. I’m grateful to Billy Cusack of British Judo for accepting me and allowing me ‘on the mat’; he gave me the freedom to be creative with the players prior to the Beijing Olympics.

I want to thank Dave Weadon, who paved the way for me to explore performance within Australian Rules (AFL), and John Worsfold, the coaching staff and players of the West Coast Eagles for accepting a ‘pom’ in their ranks. Also Kate Brayley, for sharing her unique approach to golf, and Mark ‘Gibbo’ Gibson, Chairman of the Australian PGA, who lives and breathes coaching enthusiasm and constant learning. Over the years Mark has always given me his support to be different and challenging.

Thanks to Joel Rickett at Penguin for his belief in my eight principles, out of which The Pressure Principle was produced. Steve Burdett’s constant help, patience and guidance allowed me to shape this book so that people can make better sense of it all. Finally, thanks to Sarah Wooldridge at IMG for tirelessly supporting me and guiding me through the complex maze of writing a book for the first time.