SHOTSTOPPERS

Hi, I;m Rob Flowers.(Thats me above)

I started out just like any other football mad father wanting whats best for his son who at the age of seven was showing a talent and aptitude for Goalkeeping. Remembering that this was back in the late eighties when coaches for budding 'keepers was unheard of in grass roots football. It was at this time that I had a stroke of luck in that an advert appeared in "Shoot" magazine for a course run by a midlands based school at Watfords training ground in Stanmore.

The course was staffed by Steve Sutton of Nottingham Forest, Gary Bailey of Barnet and Mick Leonard of  Chesterfield and was run by two people who were to become both good friends and the driving forces behind my subsequent progression through the FA courses leading to the acquisition of a UEFA/FA Coaches License. Namely. Eric Steele current Goalkeeping coach at Aston Villa and Dave Thompson. assistant manager at Chesterfield.

These two encouraged me to gain the nessacary  qualifications to coach not only my son, Robbie Jnr, but to then coach at a pro' level. Firstly at Southend Utd where I spent a couple of seasons and subsequently at Crystal Palace where I still work part-time.

It was whilst at Southend, I decided that coaching for the more fortunate youngsters at a Centre of Excellence or Academy was all well and good but there was a definite need for an accessible, affordable resource for those less fortunate through no real fault of their own. hence the inception of Shotstoppers, run in the home of grass roots football, Essex, from my local Rymans league club Barking FC where any youngster, male or female, can receive specialist coaching for a specialist position at affordable prices.

In November of 2005 my family and I relocated to the Colchester area and hence Shotstoppers had to relocated to its new home of Brentwood, at Brentwood Town FC, Doddinghurst road, Brentwood. 

Those of you who have been regulars on Shotstoppers courses will be aware that we are currently without a home so no new dates have been allocated. This is something I am working hard to rectify and will update as and when I can.

Good question!

Robbie (my son) had an outstanding career in local football playing in the same school team as his best mate John Terry and in the same club side as Paul Konchesky, was only kept out of the county side by blatant nepotism and went on to represent Millwall at youth level before deciding that, after much agonising,his career path would take him to University to gain his degree in Graphic Design for which he  graduated in September 2004 

As a bonus, he is still helping me on my coaching courses both with Shotstoppers and at the "Palace"