Katy Barden talks to the man who is leading the way in Leeds about his career pathway, developing independent athletes and learning to switch off.

Andrew Henderson has been head coach of athletics at Leeds Beckett University since 2013 and is head coach at the university-based Leeds Talent Hub. Personal coach to British athletes including Phil Sesemann, Alex Bell, Marc Scott and Kate Axford, his group also includes Baldvin Magnusson (Iceland) who competed over 10,000m at the 2026 European Championships; Axel Vang Christensen (Denmark) who competed over 5km at the 2026 World Road Running Championships; Ossama Meslek (Italy), 2024 Olympian in the 1500m and Jimmy Whelan (Australia), a former professional cyclist who recently made his marathon debut.

Born in Scotland, Henderson’s family emigrated to South Africa when he was two. As an adult he eventually settled in Leeds, where his wife encouraged him to pursue his passion for coaching. He joined Leeds Beckett as a mature student in 2005 (studying sport and leisure management) and completed his UK coaching qualifications before becoming an official member of the university’s coaching team in 2007.

How did you first get into coaching?

I think I realised that I wasn't going to be anything special as an athlete. I focused more on 1500m and 3km as a youngster. As a senior I was still doing bits of 1500s, but I just didn't feel I was quick enough so I ended up drifting towards the roads and then into coaching. I was quite lucky on that side. I was assisting the coach that I was working with in South Africa at the time and I also made a bit of money coaching in schools before I came to the UK.

When I first moved to Leeds I got involved with the athletics club and started running again. I also got back into my coaching because they only had one person – the head of athletics at the time – delivering all the event groups. You’d have somebody throwing, somebody sprinting, you had the endurance group going around, so there was always something happening. I offered to take on the endurance group just because I was training with them anyway, so that's how I then got involved with the club. I also started coaching with the university’s junior programme and that really helped me develop.

The hard thing back then was that nobody knew me. I started a young group with the hope of finding somebody that I could really work with and one of those kids was Ethan Hussey; he was nine when I started working with him and he went on to win world U20 800m bronze in 2022 and make the 1500m final. In 2023 he won European U23 800m silver.

Who has been your greatest coaching influence?

Brian Scobie was my mentor as part of an England Athletics mentor programme and we spent a lot of time together at the track. I learned a lot from him.

When he started out he was an endurance coach and he used to coach some of the best female marathon runners in the UK [including Véronique Marot, Angie Hulley and Sarah Rowell]. He drifted to sprints later in his coaching career – he was sprints coach at Leeds Metropolitan [Beckett] University from 2010-2011 – so it was nice to pick up on some of the sprints side of stuff, and also how important that technical side of sprinting was to endurance athletes. The other thing he was really good with was running drills. Brian spent a lot of time travelling the world so he had a lot of influence on my coaching side of things.

Another person is Malcolm Brown, who was coaching the Brownlee brothers [triathletes Alistair and Jonny] when I first turned up at the university. It was really interesting spending some time with him and to see how he was developing the young lads to eventually become Olympic athletes. I liked his calm demeanour around tough situations and his patience with athletes.

Malcolm also played a big part in creating this great training environment for athletes in Leeds. He set up excellent facilities but he also recruited good coaches, which then attracted good athletes, and people thrived in that environment.

I think because Brian and Malcolm were both on site [in Leeds] and I was able to spend a lot of time with them they were definitely big influences on where I'm at now with my coaching.

How would you describe your coaching philosophy?

I’m committed to the development of the athlete first and foremost, but I'm probably more of an old-fashioned kind of person in that I believe in having respect for your elders and I believe that we should have a mutual respect between athlete and coach. That, for me, is quite big because then you can create an honest partnership. It’s important to be honest.

I also like to be very approachable, as well as being accountable.

Educating athletes to be independent is also important. We want them to go out into the big wide world and to be able to stand up for themselves and achieve what they want out of their lives.

What would you say are the key characteristics of a good coach?

I think patience is a big one, but I also think it's just being a people person and being able to understand the individual and what they need when it comes to coaching; so, being able to read situations and being able to manage those situations appropriately to get the best out of your athlete (and for them to get the best out of you). We want our athletes to achieve their goals but we need to be patient during that process and we need to ensure that the athlete understands that, too.

How do you balance your head coach role with your personal coach role and remain approachable?

It was really difficult when I first started out and it was just me but, as we've developed at the university, and with the Talent Hub, I've got quite lucky. There are now six coaches in total which means that we can hopefully be there for the athletes – whether it’s myself or somebody else. We leave time after sessions to enable us to have conversations with athletes. We have an open-door policy, so if they just want to drop us an email and come and see us then that's fine, or they can just come and see us anyway.

I suppose I'm not always very good at just switching off from things so I do pick up messages whenever – evenings, weekends and stuff – and I always try and get back to people. 

It can be difficult with a large number of athletes to give everybody the time that they need, but I try my best. I also say to the guys that it's a lot easier if they get in touch with me if they need something and I’ll get back to them as soon as I can. That’s easier for me than it is to try to follow up with, say, 25-30 athletes. So that's basically how we work, but I think things have got easier as we’ve recruited more coaches and I'm lucky to have those coaches to help me out.

Alex Bell was an Olympic 800m finalist in Tokyo. Her transition to the roads – and ultimately to the marathon later this year – is interesting. Who instigated the move and what has that transition looked like in terms of training?

I’ve always known that Alex had an engine and I hoped that she would eventually go longer, but I didn't want to push her. It was just dropping things into conversation like: “You could do it, you know, if you really wanted to”. 

Luckily she was keen to try it. She believed in what I was saying and I think the biggest thing is that, if you're going to do a marathon, you've got to actually want to do it. I think that's key. So she was really keen to give it a try but like anything we’ve had to be patient and take one step at a time. It’s been a case of trying to get some kind of road experience, dipping into 5km, 10km, just getting a feel for running on the road and then slowly moving towards the half marathon and marathon.

I think the longer she's gone she's actually started to enjoy it a little bit more, but it's difficult when you think that, as an 800m runner, she never did more than 30 miles a week during the season and during the winter she didn’t do much more than 40 miles a week. We're at a point now where we've got to 100 miles but it's taken a little bit of time to get there.

Her first half marathon was only last year [in Amsterdam]. She’s done four now and they’ve been consistent, but there’s more in there.

There are definitely things that we haven't incorporated yet. When you look at trying to do longer races, you're looking to do longer type reps as well – 5km, 6km, 8km-type reps – and we haven't got there yet. She can still do the volume but we've had to break it up into smaller segments. So there are still places to go, but we're getting there. I think it's a bit of a mindset thing as well, just trying to get her into the right headspace to be able to do those long efforts.

Her running economy is unbelievable, so if we can just get the volume in and do things right then I'm confident that she can do something really good at the distance. 

What’s the best piece of advice you would pass on to a new or aspiring coach?

Being patient and taking your time with an athlete is key, as is learning from others and taking on board their views. As a coach you’ll learn from mistakes, but you also want to try and reduce them as much as you can.

From a personal perspective it’s important to be able to say “no” and not do too much, so being able to give yourself time to recover (as well as your athletes) and making time for yourself where you can actually switch off.

That’s another thing that I learned from Malcolm – you need to be able to switch off from athletics. That's why it's good to have family and to be able to enjoy other things. I think that's really important.