Dr Reece Chapman

Assistant Professor

School: Sport Exercise and Rehabilitation

Dr Reece Chapman is an academic member of staff who teaches primarily on the Sports Coaching (BSc) and Sport and Exercise Science (BSc) programmes. Reece's interests are aligned with sport coaching and specifically consider coaching through pedagogical and sociological lenses. Beyond this, Reece has first hand experience delivering Performance Analysis support to professional atheltes and thus teaches across northumbria Performance Analysis modules. Reece is a qualified and practicing football coach and his academic qualifications include; a PhD (specifically considering football Coach Education), Fellowship to the Higher Education Academy, MSc Professional Practice in Sports Coaching Degree, and a PGCE.

Reece also supervises a variety of research projects at varing levels (i.e., Master and PhD level) which broadly consider coaching, coach education, coach development, sport pedagogy and football.

Reece has experience of working at the coal face of different sporting spaces as both a coach/manager and performance analyst. These consist of various professional and grassroots football clubs. Reece has also worked alongside large National Governing Bodies (e.g., The FA, UK Coaching) and taught at all levels of the UK national Curriculum (e.g., primary education - higher education).

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Reece’s research interests include; Sport Pedagogy, Sport Sociology, Coach Education, Coach Development, Sports Coaching, Football and Performance Analysis.

Reece's PhD saw him work alongside The FA to gain an understanding of the development of coach education since 1967. This work has tracked the socio-pedagogical development of FA coach education overtime. Reece has also explored present day coaches' experiences of current FA coach education provision to explore how courses meet the needs of the learners today.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Freirean-informed sport coach education: A platform for voice, Chapman, R., Cronin, C. 26 May 2026, Sport, Higher Education and Critical Pedagogies, London, Routledge
Challenges and Opportunities for Community Sport Coach Development: An appreciative inquiry project, Allen, J., Chapman, R., Nichol, A., Whitehead, A., Johns, K., Carroll, M., Hayton, J., Hall, E., Potrac, P., Ryrie, A., Lascu, A., Cronin, C. 9 Oct 2025
“I am different now … I’ve come to understand what coaching is”; an exploration of an Olympic coach’s beliefs and pedagogical practice, Macdonald, S., Allen, J., Chapman, R. 22 Oct 2025, In: Sports Coaching Review
An Exploration of the Socio-Pedagogical Development, and Present-Day Coach Experiences, of Grassroots Coach Education in English Football, Chapman, R. 4 Jun 2024
Assessment in coach education: A disjointed piece of the curriculum puzzle?, Dempsey, N., Chapman, R., Cronin, C. 19 Aug 2024, Sport Coach Education, Development, and Assessment, New York, USA, Taylor & Francis
How did we get here; a historical and social exploration of the construction of English FA coach education, Chapman, R., Cope, E., Richardson, D., Littlewood, M., Cronin, C. 21 Nov 2024, In: Sport, Education and Society
The challenges of navigating different spaces and contexts in collaborative doctoral research in sport coaching, Dempsey, N., Wood, S., Chapman, R., Roberts, S., Cronin, C. 3 May 2024, In: Sports Coaching Review
A fateful love, essays on football in the North East of England in 1880–1930: by Gavin Kitching, Oxford, Peter Lang, 2021, 1–262 pp., £44, ISBN 9781789978346, Chapman, R. 18 Aug 2022, In: Soccer & Society
Understanding Grassroots Football Coach Education in England through Creative Fiction: Connecting the Past to the Present, Leeder, T., Dempsey, N., Chapman, R. 10 Jun 2022, Coach Education in Football, London, Routledge
Learning from the past; a Freirean analysis of FA coach education since 1967, Chapman, R., Richardson, D., Cope, E., Cronin, C. 23 Jul 2020, In: Sport, Education and Society