I suppose as a parent you’ll always do whatever you can to help your kids, especially if you’ve got half an idea about what it is you’re meant to be helping with. Ever since I could remember, I wanted to be a goalkeeper. My first real memories of watching football and being interested in it, apart from going to watch United with my Dad, was watching as many World Cup matches on tv – Mexico ’86 – as I could. (And the Panini sticker book). I was mesmerised by goalkeepers. The different shirt to the rest of the team (same colour shorts and socks as the outfield players back in the day though), the number 1 on the shirt and I always thought he had a proper job to do.
He had to keep the ball out of the goal, ‘his’ goal.
At that age, I just thought everybody else on the team was out to score goals. But he was the stopper, the one they were all trying to beat. One keeper at that World Cup stood out for me though. Pat Jennings of Northern Ireland. As soon as I saw him, that was it, he was my hero. I always watched goalies rather than strikers. I cheered a save louder than I cheered a goal.
So when my lad came home from school one day and said his mate had asked him to try out for his football team, as a goalie, I was delighted but more than a bit surprised. He never said he was a goalie. I’d never told him I’d always been a goalie. Maybe it’s just in the genes?
I was lucky when I played junior football in that for 2 or 3 years, I had a goalkeeper coach who trained me most weeks. He was one of my team mate’s dad. Apparently he was a pretty good keeper in his day but had been unlucky with injuries. With the way he trained me, I thought that he must have spent time in the SAS as well. I seemed to have to do more work than the other players. I did a lot of the same stuff as them for a lot of the training session; warm up, jogging, sprinting, passing. Then I did my goalie stuff which usually ended up with the rest of the team firing endless shots at me.
Some things don’t change so much.
Training sessions that I plan can be quite similar these days for my lad but as a goalie you have to be extremely determined, single-minded and understand that the training can be very, very repetitive. And hard work. I’ve seen plenty of younger goalies change their mind and decide it’s not for them after getting bored in matches and/or being fed up with their training. Worse still, they often want to be a striker instead.
My lad’s grassroots training sessions these days tend to be a warm up, running, passing drills (all with his team mates), then goalie warm up, a variety of goalie drills, usually some kicking and throwing, shooting/saving practice with the rest of the team, ‘doggies’, then a warm down. Our goalie training has also just started involving the club’s u11’s goalie which is good because there’s a fair bit of stuff the 3 of us can do, that 2 of us can’t. He looks to me as though he has the potential to be a really good keeper too and I’m looking forward to doing more coaching with them both. He’s also interested, wants to improve, doesn’t mess around and doesn’t moan at having to work hard.
As I said, I always thought as a goalie, I had to work harder than the rest of the team.
I still believe that’s true these days for keepers but if you disagree, think about this example. If you take a 5 minute shooting practice with a squad of say, 15, the 14 outfielders take it in turn to shoot at the keeper, so they are each taking maybe 5 shots a piece in the drill. The goalie will therefore face 70 shots in that 5 minutes. That’s hard work for a keeper and a lot more intense than it is for the outfielders with their one shot every 60 seconds or so.
At my lad’s previous club, I had enquired about doing my FA goalkeeper level 1 coaching badge. For various reasons, but not for the want of trying, it never quite happened. At his current club the chance arose, so I did it. I would recommend it to anybody who has ever thought about doing it. It was an eye opener for me and I have started to look at goalkeeping in a slightly different way. I would happily do my level 2 goalkeeping badge. But as times have changed and the role of a goalkeeper has changed so that he is required to be more adept at using his feet, you cannot just move onto the next badge. For me to go to the next stage of goalkeeper coaching, I would first have to pass level 1 and 2 outfield coaching badges.
To be honest, that’s maybe too big a commitment from both a time and money perspective.
Never say never but for the time being I’ll carry on with my level 1 badge and coaching the u11’s goalie. There’s also been talk of helping out with the younger age group goalies at the club and if that happens, then great. It’s all experience which will no doubt help me. And if it helps me, that can only be good for my lad too. I’ll do whatever I can to help my lad, especially if it involves goalkeeping.
Keep the faith.
Keeper of the faith 