Geordie golf pro explains how his cutting-edge sports app could benefit teams including Newcastle United

A Geordie golf professional at the centre of a cutting-edge social and professional sports app has explained how he hopes sides including Newcastle United can make the most of its services.

Steve Bainbridge has been a golf professional and elite coach for more than 34 years.

The Gosforth-born golfer runs two academies in the area at Northumberland Golf Club and The Golf Hub, as well as much further afield.

Steve said: "I've been a golf pro for 35 years now.

"I went pro straight from school at 16 and worked with tour players for about 14 years.

"Once I finished doing my time on tour I looked to set up golf academies.

"We started in London then branched out to Portugal, where I moved in 2016 to set that one up before we came back in 2019."

It was changing from one-on-one coaching to working with groups of people that planted the seed for the app, called oneXp, in Steve's head.

He explained: "The hardest thing for me was, after coaching for eight hours in a row, going home and doing another two hours of comms with clients and looking at swings and analysing them - I was spending so much extra time working and not with my family and not even giving the best service.

"The concept came from wanting to make my life and my staff's life easier but, fundamentally, to communicate with clients better and give them a better experience."

The app is already up and running, but has a long journey ahead of it with Steve launching it as a social platform in May.

He said: "At the moment we are very much coach and client, but the concept is basically to become a Facebook of sport for adults.

"I'm 51, sports-mad and hate Facebook. Sport is my life, my job, my interest, I watch it, play it, and am at St. James' Park all the time.

"I want a platform that is relevant for me and that's what we are trying to build.

"The video is still available, but you can talk to friends and do everything that Facebook does too."

For those wanting to sink their teeth into the technical side of the app, Magpies-supporting Steve gave an insight into what clubs such as Newcastle United could use it for.

He said: "If we take a penalty taker, Callum Wilson for example.

"Callum is going to take a penalty and in training, you'd have a camera behind him and a camera in front of him.

"When he was practicing taking them, you would push a button on your watch to record and stop record, then both of these feeds would go into the same screen.

"If you push the sync button, they actually go live and sync together. It almost creates a 3D view.

"The real reason we brought heart rate into that is to allow coaches to monitor technique under pressure.

"Let's say he's practicing with Dubravka tomorrow ahead of the weekend's game and his heart rate is at 95 bpm.

"Then, the coach on the side will video him taking a penalty against Liverpool on Saturday, and the heart rate will go... he's at 170 bpm.

"From their data analysis platform, they can pull that in and start monitoring anxiety and pressure."