In December 2013, Nadeem Shaikh, Managing Director of SMART Way Forward was awarded ‘Coach of the year’ by his athletics club Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers.
The award was shared between Nadeem and fellow endurance coach George Harrison, both of whom have been coaching young athletes in the Hertfordshire, Middlesex, North London and Home Counties region for many years to great success.
Nadeem is an established UKA level 3 performance endurance coach, as well as the Vice President and Coaching Secretary of Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers. In addition, he is also one of the coaches on the National Coach Development Programme (NCDP) with England Athletics and regularly works with other coaches and athletes from the North London Athletics Network (NLAN), London Athletics and those working on performance programmes with UK Athletics.
George Harrison was actually Nadeem’s athletics coach during his competitive running days and has been coaching with Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers for over 50 years. Nadeem has been with the club for just over 26 years and between them, both George and Nadeem have consistently produced some of the best UK endurance athletes over 800m, 1500m, 3000m, 5000m, 10K and marathon at various age groups. Many of whom have gone on to achieve International honours by representing Team GB at various track, road and cross country championships around the world.
George and Nadeem are regularly referred to by many athletes and coaches at Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers as the ‘Father and Son’ coaching team. They are both well respected at the club and have always maintained a very close coaching relationship.
“George and I are truly honoured to be receiving this trophy in recognition of all the volunteer coaching hours we put in at the club. Nothing is ever achieved without focus, commitment, determination and consistency – and that goes for coaches as well as athletes!” said Nadeem
Thank you to all the committee, coaches, team managers and athletes for recognising the hard work and commitment we put into the sport every week. There is nothing better than seeing your athletes train hard, develop and eventually reach their full potential”
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