Just a Ball, a Wall, and a Field

I did not have a goalkeeper coach. I had a wall. Everything Ground Glory teaches came out of working it out the slow way.

The short version, in order

The beginningA ball, a wall and a field
No goalkeeper coach. I copied what I saw on television and got it wrong for years.
Teenage yearsTraining hard, improving slowly
Goal kicks were my kryptonite. I was sick before games from nerves. I assumed that was just me.
At 23I stopped
Not because of my hands. Because of what I was doing to myself between the ears.
AfterI came back
Back in a goal, and the best years of my career came after that. Years later than they needed to be.
Now1,000+ goalkeepers coached
Teaching the plan I never had, to keepers who are exactly where I was.

The long version

I did not grow up with a goalkeeper coach. I grew up with a ball, a wall and a field.

Nobody showed me how to dive properly. Nobody told me where to stand. I copied what I saw on television, got it wrong for years, and assumed the problem was me.

I thought there was something wrong with me

Every goal that went in became evidence. Not “that was a good finish”, but something much worse and much more personal.

“I used to call myself a big fat pig, just in my own language. Every time I let in a goal: oh, Kristian, you big fat pig.”

Me, on a group call, telling the truth about my own head

I said that out loud on a call once, half expecting it to land badly. Instead a 13-year-old called John answered.

“Like I actually have. I thought it was only me.”

John, 13, the week after he heard me say it

That is when I understood what I had actually been carrying, and how many of them are carrying it too.

It cost me more than games

“I even stopped playing when I was 23, when I should have been at the peak of my powers. I stopped because I couldn’t take it any more.”

Me, on what the pressure actually cost

I came back. But I lost years to a problem that was never about talent, and I did not get anywhere near the career I had hoped for.

Goal kicks were my kryptonite. I was sick before games because I was so nervous. None of that was a lack of ability. It was a lack of anyone telling me what to actually do.

Kristian, founder of Ground Glory, in goalkeeper gloves — Still in goal. Still learning things I wish someone had told me at 15.

So I built the thing I needed

Ground Glory is not more drills. Drills are everywhere and they are free. What almost no young goalkeeper has is a plan: what to train this week, why, and what comes after it.

That is what I make. A route through, in order, from someone who took the long way round and would rather you did not.

This is what it looks like when it works

Real goalkeepers I have coached. Their words, not mine.

Winter

Age 13 · Ground Glory

Trialled at several clubs and came away with a place. In his words: “I got offers from every single one.”

Henry

Age 11 · Ground Glory

Five weeks in, a coach who had watched him struggle said the thing he needed to hear: “You look like a goalkeeper.”

Neelu

Age 14 · Ground Glory

Went from third choice to the manager telling her: “Don’t worry about it, you’re playing.” Now on a full college scholarship.

So you know who is telling you this

I never made it to the Premier League. But I have spent a long time standing in a goal, and almost everything I teach I learned the hard way in these games.

20+ yearsin goal, and still playing

500+ gamescompetitive, at a good level

National teamrepresented my country

Champions & Europa Leaguequalifying rounds

Voted Goalkeeper of the Year in my country several times, and Player of the Month in September 2025, the only goalkeeper ever to win it.

Where this is written from

The Faroe Islands. Eighteen islands in the North Atlantic, more sheep than people, and weather that decides whether you train outside today.

It is not where you would expect a goalkeeping academy to come from, and that is rather the point. Nobody here was going to hand me a route in. I had to build one, and everything I teach comes out of doing it the hard way first.

Kristian training on a pitch in the Faroe Islands

Where this goes next

More of the programme built out, more goalkeepers coached one to one, and a library good enough that no young keeper has to work it out alone the way I did. That is the whole plan. It has not changed since the beginning.

You do not have to work it out alone

That is the entire reason this exists. A real plan, in order, so you are never guessing what to train.

See the training programme $27 a month. 30-day money-back guarantee if it is not helping.