Over two Decades of Success
The Goalkeeping Arts school has been established for 23 years now and caters for boys and girls of all abilities.
Generally, the students that attend are aged between 6 and 16 and are from the local leagues in South London
Two training sessions are run on Saturdays:
•Beginners & Intermediate: 6 – 12 years old: 9am-10.15am
•Advanced & Experienced: 12 years and up: 10.30am-12pm
Older goalkeepers are welcome, as specialist goalkeeper training can be hard to come by for amateur teams
and some non-league clubs. From experience, older goalkeepers have a positive role model effect on the group.
The philosophy of the coaching is very simple; there is a complete focus on educating
the athlete through an emphasis on technical coaching with appropriate conditioning training,
to help produce players that have great awareness, creativity and excellent technical ability.
The school aims to do this by fostering a professional attitude and focus in the student, but not forgetting
that effective learning takes place in an environment of fun, support and expression.
As goalkeeping is such a specialised position it’s very hard sometimes for onlookers, parents
and non-specialised coaches to completely empathise and understand what the goalkeeper
is trying to achieve in many game situations.
The mental skills needed to cope with this are also incorporated into their training,
to help them deal with the inevitable mistakes, criticism and competition.
To help improve the goalkeepers’ concentration, confidence and control they use visualisation techniques
and goal setting tasks to help them with their game preparation, matches and training.
