My Thoughts

Can being a coach make you a better goalkeeper?

At Club MO/GK, I'm a big believe in creating opportunities to help develop young coaches, as well as goalkeepers. I am proud to offer paid, hands-on roles for individuals looking to get into coaching, regardless of age or experien...

12 March 2024

Club MO/GK

Club MO/GK turns one year old!

On the 6th of March 2023, the first Club MO/GK session took place at Halstead Leisure Centre in Essex. Nine young goalkeepers came along to our first session, four of whom are still training with us today. Since then, we've grown...

11 January 2024

Bury St Edmunds goalkeeper coaching

In 2024 I am looking to expand on our current Club MO/GK offering, which is currently exclusive to Halstead Essex, by adding an additional venue near* Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. This will allow us to provide high-quality goalkeeper...

4 October 2023

Club MO/GK

What is 'Club MO/GK'?

Club MO/GK is many things. At it's very core, it is group goalkeeper training for children aged 6-13, but that is far from the whole story. With Club MO/GK, I am trying to create something that not only gives children a fun, safe...

22 August 2023

MO Goalkeeping sponsors AFC Sudbury goalkeeper for 2023-24 campaign

MO Goalkeeping is proud to be sponsoring AFC Sudbury Women‘s goalkeeper Millie Carter for the 2023/24 campaign. AFC Sudbury are competing in the FA Women’s National League this season for the first time in the club’s history and M...

9 March 2023

Exploring differentiated learning in group practices

I recently became aware of the process of 'differentiated learning', an approach to teaching that recognises that every learner is unique and that a one-size-fits-all approach is not effective. Instead, differentiated learning aim...

17 February 2023

Goalkeeper footwork: proactive vs reactive

A lot is made of footwork in goalkeeping. You could argue that it is perhaps the most important skill a goalkeeper can master, with good footwork increasing your chances of keeping the ball out of the net in almost any situation y...

25 August 2022

Session review - 24/08/22

This session was the first chance I'd had to get a decent group of the Long Melford 'keepers together since the start of the regular season. In total there were six goalkeepers present with representatives from the various differe...

23 May 2022

Sessions

Structuring a progressive technical session

I'm a big advocate of making goalkeeper coaching sessions as match-realistic and match-relevant as possible, however I also believe that not every session can be purely focused on live scenarios and that regular technical practice...

12 May 2022

Case study: hip roll

The ability to change direction quickly as a goalkeeper is paramount to success. Whether it's reacting to a rebound, adjusting for a deflected effort on goal or simply needing to re-position as a result of a switch of play, quick...

14 April 2022

2021-22 Season Review

As a coach, self-analysis is important. Most coaches review their performance after every session, which is something that I've really tried to focus on these past few months and that I'd like to build on by reviewing my 2021-22 s...

7 April 2022

Why film your sessions?

Recently, I started recording my sessions and uploading them to my YouTube channel. I don't have a ready-made audience to view these, the videos take hours to edit down and upload and I don't receive anything for doing so, so you'...

3 April 2022

Matchday

Practice what you preach

I decided to stop playing 11-a-side football at the end of the 2018-19 season. After a couple of years out of the 'full sized' game altogether, I decided to embark on a journey into coaching in 2020, but was briefly tempted out of...

2 March 2022

Session Review: Reactive Shot Stopping

For this session, I chose to utilise some ideas from Notts County goalkeeping coach Tom Weal published in a video recently put out by the club. The biggest thing for me on my coaching journey has been learning from experienced and...

3 November 2021

Whole-group movement and passing practice

My comfort zone when it comes to coaching is very much in working with a group of 2-4 goalkeepers, putting on interesting, enjoyable sessions which challenge their basic skills, get them thinking about their goalkeeping and ultima...

20 October 2021

Positioning

A few weeks ago I faced a challenge in my coaching journey, as I was required to deliver some 'theory' during one of our weekly training sessions. With just 30-40 minutes on the clock and players who 'pay to play', this was never...

18 August 2021

Sessions

Session Review: Crossing (17/08/21)

I wanted to take some time today to review last night's pre-season training session, which focused primarily on dealing with crosses. Session Aims To cover the basic techniques around catching, punching and dealing with crosses in...

15 July 2021

Pre-season 2021-22 session

This week marked my return to training for the first time this season and boy did it feel good to be back on the grass! The session was broken up into four main sections, some of which were inspired by various different practices...

21 June 2021

The FA Introduction to Coaching Football course

This week the FA launched the replacement for their Level 1 course, titled 'Introduction to Coaching Football'. This course shifts the focus from face-to-face learning to a completely online approach, presumably with the intention...

11 June 2021

Picking up more hands-on experience

For the last two weeks I've been observing (and occasionally helping out) with some goalkeeping sessions run by former AFC Sudbury keeper-turned goalkeeper coach Paul Walker, which he's been running for local goalkeepers to fill t...

5 May 2021

Season 1 Summary

This week saw my last session of the 2020-21 season. Of all the years to get into coaching, I couldn't have picked a worse one really - COVID-19 disruptions wreaked havoc across the world and football was suspended or cancelled al...

23 February 2021

The long-awaited return

So Boris has finally given us a date to aim for with regards to the return of organised team sports - fantastic news. The 9th of December last year was the last time I stepped onto a football pitch for coaching, 76 long days ago,...

11 January 2021

A stuttering start

When I first started this blog back in September, I probably expected to be further along the road than I am right now. Lockdown was over and, although I was fairly a certain the dreaded 'second wave' was on the horizon, I was hop...

12 December 2020

Matchday

Out of the frying pan...

17th February 2018. 1029 days ago. This was the last time I played a competitive game of 11-a-side football before deciding to call time on it all. Since then, I've got a few charity games, the 'Portman Cup' (a pay-to-play game he...

3 November 2020

Learning through experience

I'm a big believer in learning through experience. The FA courses and wealth of other online learning resources out there all have their place, but I don't think anything can replicate actually 'doing'. Think about it, just becaus...

25 October 2020

Putting our warmup drills into practice

This weekend was the first time that I've been able to get myself to a game. Unfortunately I am not able to commit to football at the weekend's (which is part of the reason I stopped playing), so I've not been able to get down the...

22 October 2020

Recovering from a bad session

Last night was not my finest moment. I didn't know how many keepers I'd be working with until about 90 minutes before the session (it fluctuates weekly from a pool of three of them), so my planning was hampered from the off. I thi...

1 October 2020

Can 'Goalie Wars' be more than a gimmick?

If you're not familiar with 'goalie wars', have a little look on YouTube. Essentially, you put two (small) goals 18ish yards apart, stick a goalkeeper in each of them and ask them to score as many goals against each other as possi...

17 September 2020

My first session

Yesterday (Wednesday 16th September 2020), I finally took my first coaching session. I was given a 40 minute slot in the middle of a 90 minute training session and had been preparing all week, working on a number of drills that I'...

3 September 2020

Observing my first session

Last night (Wednesday 2nd September) I observed my first coaching session. It was the first time I'd ever been to a training session and not taken part, something which felt wholely unnatural and certainly took a bit of getting us...

1 September 2020