Goalkeepers of all ages from across the club came together recently for a special evening with Brandon Austin.
The 26-year-old stopper, famously a product of our Academy system, spoke at length about the ups and downs he’s experienced on his journey to becoming a Premier League footballer and Europa League winner with us.
Budding young keepers from every age group in the Academy – Under-21s down to Under-8s, and even some of our pre-Academy goalkeepers as young as six – were captivated by Brandon’s stories and enjoyed a golden opportunity to pick his brains in a Q&A before heading outside for a specially-arranged training session overseen by the homegrown star along with our Head of Goalkeeping Fabian Otte and First Team Assistant and Transition Goalkeeping Coach Dean Brill.
As part of the evening, Brandon’s mum, Lisa, also spoke brilliantly to the parents and guardians of our current crop of young goalkeepers – who were also invited to attend the event – about her experiences of supporting her son on his journey to the top.
With so many aspiring stoppers listening in, it was fitting that Brandon spoke about the advice he would give to his younger self when reflecting on his career so far.
“Being older and wiser now, I would tell myself that I didn’t need to put as much pressure on myself about certain things,” he said. “I let things get to me a lot when I was younger – I can remember when I first transitioned to 11v11 football, any goals that went in, I’d think it was my fault, it was a catastrophe, a disaster that I’d conceded a goal, but there were 10 other people in front of me who could have done something to help prevent it, so that comes with being older and wiser.”
Fabian, who joined the club over the summer after serving as part of Premier League title-winning Liverpool’s backroom staff last season, arranged the event along with Dean and underlined how important it was for our young keepers to feel like they can relate to Brandon as they bid to follow in his footsteps.
“This event comes from something we started looking at during the summer, where we in the club, the Academy and the goalkeeping department – with our Head of Academy Goalkeeping Sam Donkin – all work very closely together every day,” he said.
“This was just one event that we wanted to start with because Brandon, with his pathway, is the perfect example of how a good department can work and how young goalkeepers can make it all the way through to the first team. That was the idea, to take Brandon as the best case example of what good work looks like, give all the young goalkeepers a chance to see this journey up close and to ask questions about it.
“The whole evening went very well, Brandon was very happy and excited about it, his mother was really happy to be there and Brandon was happy that she was there as well, because his parents played a big, big role in his development. The combination of Brandon being present and getting the credit he deserves, the goalkeepers getting good insight, his mum being there and also the parents attending and seeing a parent who has been through this entire journey meant it was a really good, holistic package for everyone.”
The evening came off the back of a similar session led by Guglielmo Vicario last season, with further events planned with our senior goalkeepers in the coming months.