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Jeff,

Can I thank and congratulate you on such a great, informative, well set out easy to use website. All the info I needed to know was here and helped me a great deal. Many, many thanks.

If you've got a moment, I'd like to explain what an impact your site has had on me since August 2004.

Finally I am in a job where I can have weekends to myself and play football for my local team here in the UK. I started back in August as a sub, with an outlook to play 10 - 15 minutes each Sunday hoping to play either in defence or wherever I was put. After 2 games I played for a total of 5 minutes and was feeling a bit low, but knew, if I put in 100% whenever I'm on the pitch I'd possibly get longer in the next match. But in a strange twist of fate, the Saturday night before our 3rd game of the season our keeper broke his foot in a bizarre accident while dancing in a club. You may have guessed it by now, but I was asked to play in goal, until our keeper was fit again.

I didn't have a clue what I was doing and in my first game between the sticks we lost 6 - 1. So not being too down heartened, I decided to look up goalkeeping tips on the net. Which is when I found your site. Every lunch time at work, I wrote down notes and copied the summary on each page to try and enforce in my mind your tactics. I photocopied my notes and kept them in my bedside cabinet, and each morning before a game I would read them with a coffee. Gradually, I became more aware of my footwork, positioning and how important it is to keep focused. After a while I was really starting to enjoy playing in goal, even making a great save in one game that got a mention in our local newspaper.

Our original goalkeeper was asked to wait by the manager until he was fully fit, but he moved away from our area, and was never really interested in playing anymore (much to my delight). I did suffer a slight slump in form and things werent going right. I don't know about you, but in that sort of situation it felt like the whole team was against me, even if they weren't. But my girlfriend kept me positive, so to did reading your notes, and the cut out I had of the local paper!

Over the season, our team enjoyed much success, winning our league and coming runners up in a KO cup competition which was played at a semi-pro football ground. We picked up our league winners trophies and cup runners up prizes in front of crowd of about 150. In it were all our closet friends and family, and I collected my trophies, not as number 12 but as number 1.

Thanks Jeff

Kindest Regards

Steve

Keep up the good work. No doubt I'll need your tips for next season!!

SUTTON ST JAMES FC
Sunday League Division 2 Champions
Mont Pell Cup Final Runners Up
Back left - Jonny Britton, Lewis Chapman, Steve Wright, Dan Piccaver, Johnny Hubbard, Andrew Bennett, Phil-(big ears)-Newton. Front left - Shaun Turner (C), Richie Smith, Jim Cooper, Phil Turner, Andy Cooper, Ashley Godfrey