About Us
BIO
So every story has a start, and just like any good goal keeper I started my hockey career, and you guessed it, as a striker instead! So, how did I come about being a keeper? Again, most keepers don’t really remember how we end up in the goals, it just happens! I looked at another goalie and thought to myself “that looks like fun, it can’t be that difficult … I can do this!” Turns out, I was right! I used to play school hockey as striker for the A team and then goalie for the B team. I finally got the opportunity to play in a brand-new keeper kit for the A side permanently, only catch was I would have to give up the striking gig, DEAL!
So cutting one short story long I ended up playing goalie as my long-term position. Turns out I wasn’t half bad at the spot and I started working my way up the ranks. Now a little more background, I grew up in a little town called East London, so the level of hockey wasn’t the greatest, which I found out when we started playing IPT tournaments! I represented Border for under 16 and under 18 and was awarded colours and the prestigious honors at school’s level. After school I started at the under 21’s and even got to captain the side in my final year, then started playing for the men’s open side at the age of 19.
After realizing there where only a few good things to ever come out of the East London (Friesland Milkshakes, Bucaneers Burgers, the N2, and a few not-half-bad hockey players!) As a fresh 20 year old, I decided to make the great trek to Cape Town to start this challenging thing called Life in the land of new opportunities. When I arrived in the Cape, I started playing for one of the local clubs in the highest division and got a very swift wakeup call with regards to the level and depth of hockey in the Western Cape. Firstly, we had a season of roughly 18 games, which was close to twice as many as back home. Secondly, only playing everyone twice instead of around four times a season meant there were three times the amount of teams! There were actually even more clubs in the region, they just didn’t field teams in all of the divisions, which was even more mind blowing for me!
I played in the highest league for about 5 years where life got a bit crazy and work took over. I didn’t play for about 7 years and one day I was driving past the astro and wondered to myself why I ever stopped, and so began the progression of getting back on the turf again.
From there I played my way back up the ranks, starting in the third division and ending the same season in the second division, with increasingly better than average keeping abilities. In the next second league season I had possibly one of the best team seasons of my career, having an almost perfect season where we won all and drew but one game, ending with a ridiculous goal difference of something silly like plus 52 at the end of it! From there I stepped back into the main stream level and continued playing hockey at the highest club level available. After a year or two at that, I ticked on in the candle department, so was eligible for the Masters setup (the over 35’s). I had to again play my way back up the ranks from the 4th side, the famous Carthorses as we were then known. The next year, I got the call up to the First side and was back in the highest level of hockey in my age division. Playing with and against many ex-Springboks and Olympians, I soon realized that this was no joke and loved being back in the mix of topflight hockey, even at that age.
A year later, I managed to crack the nod for the Masters World Cup in the 35 age group and we were off to Barcelona, Spain. This was my first time in the Green and Gold, and also playing hockey in another country for the first time, so I was very exciting to say the least, except it didn’t quite turn out that way. I managed a grade 3 hamstring tear in preseason training, which meant what would have been my first World Cup appearance was done. Fast forward and two years later I again was selected to play in the World Cup at the over 40’s level in Nottingham, England. This time training was going well and we were doing a lot of preparation with monthly training camps, but then that little annoying thing called Covid happened and everyone was kinda sent home for a few weeks. Turns out it was to be longer than “just a few weeks” and the World Cup was duly postponed, so I missed it again!
During the next year we all had to get used to things very differently. This was when I got the really exciting and silly idea to try and release a range of products exclusively for goal keepers! This idea had been brewing for quite some time and it was finally time to get my “A into G” as they say and get going with plans and design. Now, I can tell you for free, having an idea on paper and making a final product is far from the same thing, close you might think, but nowhere near! I started sourcing different suppliers for different items and that in itself can be a task from 2 weeks to 2 months, if you are lucky sometimes!
So, after much running around and a few sleepless nights of problem solving every small detail, I was starting to get a few items out. Some “good ideas” worked well, others turned out to be a few “bad ideas”, even once I’d done all the running around to make it happen. During production of one item another idea would pop in and then another product to add to the list, there are actually quite a few more items based solely for keepers that I am working on such as: after training hoodies, full finger gloves, long stem water bottles and an exclusive stick range only for keepers, and that’s just to name a few. So keep popping into the site for new products and features!
In saying that, it has been quite stressful and exciting all in the same breath to be able to bring out a range of products exclusively for goal keepers! More often than not goalkeepers at school, club and tour teams, always get left out of the loop on kit, now we have a range of items just for us. It has always been my dream to put us keepers back on the map again!