Coach Richard Neale is the founder of the current Stroud Judo Club. As a very active child with the enthusiasm to wrestle everyone who came through the door, he was taken to the local judo club. A comparatively late starter at age eleven, Richard entered local competitions and progressed through the various grades achieving 1st Dan (black belt) status.

Between the age of nineteen and twenty seven Richard was a full time athlete at Camberley Judo Club where he attended training camps at various locations around the World including the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Centre and the Kodakan in Japan. He had the pleasure of training and competing against World and Olympic medalists and has himself won medals at national and international events.

Highlights of his career was achieving his Black Belt, a fifth place in the Swedish Open and a silver in the Belgium Open.

More recently Richard has realized there is more to success than great physical effort and has put considerable time into sports science/psychology and the development of the mind in order to achieve goals.

Over the years of training for his own personal performance, he has had the pleasure of working with some of the greatest people in there fields and feels that working experience is more important than knowledge alone. Most people know what they should do, but not many people do what they know'.

Mark Earle:

The British Team Coach for over ten years. (Richard was a member of his full-time set-up for 8 years and became one of his judo support coaches and leading strength coaches.)

Mike Favor:

An Olympic Lifter for America and now heads the strength and conditioning for 'Colorado Springs Olympic Training Centre. (Richard met Mike when he was  head strength coach for Scotland)

David Briscombe:

Psychologist, Hypnotherapist and a NLP practitioner for the clinic of Newport. (The mind is a key factor to winning. And Richard was working on his own mind for two years with David. At the same time Richard was studying sports Psychology and Hypnotherapy in order to understand how it all works. Richard turned down an offer to work with David in order to fulfill his ambitions in his judo career.)

Personal Training:

In order to fund his career he qualified as a personal trainer and worked with clients physically, mentally and nutritionally. He has trained amateur and professional boxers, judo players; swimmers, gymnasts, and basketball players as well as the general public with weight issues and general well-being.