LEE JONES

From age 6 to 15 I played for Everton FC in the English Premier League. From age 15 to 22 I signed my first professional contract for Wrexham AFC (League 1 team at the time). I have also represented my country playing for Wales. At the age of 22 I came to Sydney, Australia for a new adventure of playing and coaching. I am now playing Semi professional for Hakoah FC in NPL1 but coaching and Joner 1on1 is my main passion.

I wanted a change from the UK; I also had a friend in Australia who played soccer. I wanted to see what opportunities there were available in Australia, I’ve been here for 3 years now and haven’t looked back.

I noticed that a lot of players that I was coaching within a team environment just lacked that technical ability in all areas. I also felt that sometimes during team training sessions, as a player you weren’t getting enough touches of the ball, not enough repetition with the ball to really get that consistency. I started to get a few enquiries to do private sessions and then once I started delivering them with a few balls and cones, the enquiries started hitting the roof. It was my wife that pushed me to start my own business in 2013. It has now become my full time job, coaching the best talent Australia has to offer. A league players, Women’s Premier League players, Winners of the Nike Academy, international players including young Matildas.

Now I also do team training sessions, Elite soccer camps, online training programs, position specific training, match analysis package for elite players, design players football portfolios, the Joner 1on1 complete footballer and the latest edition is Joner 1on1 sports tours.

I now have 8 members of staff, 7 coaches including myself. I have an elite coach based in each of the metropolitan areas of Sydney. In addition I have a full time administrator and a part time photographer/videographer.

At first I used ideas from all the sessions I’ve had in my career. But then I started to put a program together where I would work on a specific game component each week. A lot of my session ideas are my own, but I love to watch football and learn from others. I also gather all my coaches on the field to get our heads together to design some new drills fro all ages and abilities.

I must admit that soccer is growing rapidly in Australia. A lot more young footballers are getting involved in our beautiful game, especially with the success of the national team over the last few years. I have been here since 2012 and seen it progress every year. To compare it to the UK it is different in a lot of ways. To keep it short there are 30x more teams and opportunities in the UK. As a playing aspect the game is a lot faster and way more physical in the UK.

There are a lack of facilities in Australia, I would say this is due to soccer not being the number 1 sport and is competing with cricket and AFL, where as in the UK Soccer is LIFE! Australia needs to have promotion and relegation from NPL1 to A league to see it progress even further. I believe this is due to facilities.

Every player needs to be open-minded and needs to realize that nothing is handed on a plate. They have to put their life and soul into becoming a Professional footballer. Learn from the game, watch the best, study the game, be different, be a character, be 100% committed to your goal and don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not good enough.

Continue to develop and invest my time into my coaches. Build the Joner 1on1 Sports tours. Work with some really big names within the game. Grow all social media pages to become a social influencer. Take the Joner 1on1 brand and program all around the world. Have coaches working for Joner 1on1 internationally. Continue to love the game and have a huge amount of passion for developing young players.