Ambassadors
We are proud to have the support of our fantastic ambassadors who are an inspiration to our apprentices, employers, and to us!
Steph Houghton
Steph is the Manchester City Women’s football team captain. She has over 100 caps for England, has won the FA Women’s Cup 5 times and the FA Women’s Super League 3 times. “There’s lots of amazing people that are involved in Coach Core. I love the fact that we’re able to give young people the opportunity to achieve new skills, new qualifications and to give back to the community, and for people to be able to look up to these people – it's very special”
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Max Whitlock
Gymnast Max is a five-time Olympic medallist and an eight-time world medallist. He became Britain's first ever gold medallist in artistic gymnastics when he won both the men's floor and pommel horse exercises at the 2016 Summer Olympics. With twelve medals and five titles in Olympic and world championships, Whitlock is the most successful gymnast in the nation's history. “I think the power of Coach Core is giving people a good start. You can’t ask for more than that when you’re young. To kickstart you off with Coach Core – what they can provide you in terms of skillset, in terms of experience, in terms of qualification – is absolutely perfect to springboard people into a successful future. That is hugely, hugely powerful and something that I love about Coach Core”
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Heather Fisher
Birmingham-based former Olympic rugby player and GB bobsledder, Heather is an accomplished elite athlete, motivational speaker, LGBT advocate and media personality with her own BBC radio podcast. After a difficult start in life and teenage struggles with anorexia, Heather quickly found she excelled in the sports arena. Breaking her back in four places in her late 20s left her in a back brace for 18 months and triggered alopecia which impacted her self-confidence and perception of herself. Never to be held down, she learnt to crawl, walk and finally run again before returning to international sport and was quickly back at the top of her game. Rugby highlights include competing in five Rugby World Cups and winning in 2014, winning four Six Nations, medalling at the Commonwealth Games and representing Team GB in the Olympic Games Rio 2016. “I am excited to come on board with Coach Core and it is a huge honour and privilege to be working with a great team. It is going to be amazing to work closely with the Coach Core staff and apprentices to create positive change in the world and can't wait to see the incredible things we will achieve together.”
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Seapeekay
Seapeekay (CPK) aka Callum Knight is a world record breaking gamer, best known for Minecraft, and a content creator for esports team Misfits Gaming. He has nearly 700k followers on YouTube, as well as strong and rapidly growing communities on Twitch, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, and streams daily to thousands of viewers. A mental health advocate, Callum is also a firm believer in the higher power of the gaming community to support one another’s well-being. “Being a Coach Core ambassador is a great opportunity to help support young adults achieve great things. Having seen first-hand the important work Coach Core does in supporting apprentices on their journey, I am excited to play my part as a Coach Core ambassador.”
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Scott Hann
Scott is Director of Coaching at South Essex Gymnastics Club. He has coached gymnasts to 43 medals at the Olympics, European & World Championships and Commonwealth Games including 5 Olympic medals & 3 world titles. “For me it’s about opportunity. It not only gives opportunity to inspiring people wanting to get involved in coaching, but also to organisations to link up with individuals that have come from different backgrounds, not just traditional progression from athlete to coach within the same sport. It also gives people a real good head start into their coaching journey, arming them with the tools that you usually gain from years and years of experience, but they get them much earlier on, giving them such a crucial head start.”
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Jo Pavey
Jo Pavey is an extraordinary athlete whose achievements include winning gold in the 2014 European Athletics Championships 10,000m at the age of forty to became the oldest European Champion in history just ten months after giving birth to her second child. Jo is a World Championships 10,000m Bronze medalist and she has also won European silver and bronze medals, and Commonwealth silver and bronze medals. She became the only British track runner to have participated in five Olympic Games, also earning the title of Britain’s oldest ever Olympic runner at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. "The charity does such fantastic work to transform the lives of young people who’ve been disadvantaged or missed out on opportunities. It really is so fantastic how, through the power of sport and apprenticeships, Coach Core gives people that start in life they really need to get into education or employment"
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Azeem Amir
Azeem Amir has been visually impaired since birth. However, he has never let it be a barrier to success. Azeem plays Blind Football professionally for the England and Great Britain blind football team and is working towards achieving international success. Alongside his football, Azeem has also just completed a Master’s Degree from the University of Salford and has recently started his company Learn With ESS that uses workshops, Paralympic sports and motivational speaking to help people's understanding of disability in a team cohesive way. "As I’ve met and coached alongside these individuals I’ve seen how apprenticeships are a different way of learning that can help people still get to their end goal. You can be as book-smart as you want but learning on the job - there’s nothing like it. I want to be part of that journey, to change the way people across the country interact with sport, and I’m very passionate about our values aligning."
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Eboni Usoro-Brown
Eboni is a former netball player who competed had a glittering international career with the England Netball Team and won the gold medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. She earned 117 caps and was inducted into the England Netball Hall of Fame in 2020. She is now a solicitor at a leading legal firm in the South West, and commentator for Sky Sports. Eboni has served as an Ambassador and Trustee of Coach Core for several years now and we are delighted she will be continuing in those roles.
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Judy Murray
Judy Murray is a former Scottish international tennis player with 64 national titles to her name. She became Scottish National Coach in 1995, the same year that she became the first woman to pass the Lawn Tennis Association’s Performance Coach Award. She initiated the Scottish Development School programme, which ultimately produced four Davis Cup players and one Fed Cup player, including her Grand-Slam-winning sons, Jamie and Andy. In 2011 Judy was appointed Captain of the British Fed Cup Team and used this role to grow the profile and numbers in women’s tennis across players and coaches. Judy has developed several tennis initiatives including Miss-Hits, a starter programme for girls age 5 to 8, Tennis on the Road, which takes tennis into remote and deprived parts of Scotland, and She Rallies, a programme with the LTA, to encourage more women and girls into tennis across the UK. “I’m a massive believer in the importance of investing young people and also a massive believer in how sport can change lives and I think Coach Core allows both of those things to happen, so it’s an absolute pleasure to be involved with you.”
Follow Judy on Twitter