Mark Yeates takes Fleetwood Town coaching role

The 37-year-old becomes Town's new Under-18s assistant coach.

Yeates already has experience working in the club’s academy over the past two years, and last season assisted under-18s boss Simon Wiles, who moved on to Salford City last week.

Irishman Yeates spent a year at Blackpool (2016-17) and 15 months at Fylde (2019-20) before a final playing stint in the Northern Premier League with Bamber Bridge.

In a two-decade playing career that began at Tottenham Hotspur, Yeates played for 13 clubs in the English game's top four tiers and made almost 400 League appearances.

Yeates, who has been completing his A licence, told the Fleetwood website: “Over the last few years, the club have shown how successful they are as an academy by producing plenty of talent, with some of those players making their first-team debuts with Fleetwood and others making the move into the Championship and Premier League.

“My aim is to help develop this current group of players and hopefully produce players who go on to represent this club in the first team.”

Academy manager Jack Higgins said: “Mark's personality is infectious and he has been a great mentor for the players in our Academy.

"Using his experiences as a player to guide our young lads on their individual journeys can only be a positive.”