Like most goalkeepers, I’m absolutely obsessed with the setup of my kit.
I’ve spent hours looking through videos, photos and watching matches live to see what other goalkeepers are doing to see what I can improve in my own equipment.
One of the most tinkered with parts of my kit would have to be the arm guards. Over the years I’ve moved from prioritising protection to prioritising flexibility and movement and back again, and of course, I also tried to find the Holy Grail – something that combines both. More on that, later.
During my ‘flexibility and movement’ phase I experimented with no arm guards, as I’ve seen many a goalkeeper do. That lasted a grand total of two matches as I tore my elbows to shreds when I slid out to make a save on a particularly dry, sandy pitch. These cuts didn’t heal for weeks and resulted in many a work shirt being covered in blood in the office. Not ideal.
When Jeremy Gucassoff (remember him?) was winning shootouts for Racing, I noticed that he wore one elbow pad on his right arm, so I did that for a while, because, well, it worked for him. It didn’t make me a world-class goalkeeper and I still copped a few bruises and a few grazes from the lack of protection.
I also used ice hockey elbow pads to protect myself from those grazes but still allow me the freedom and flexibility I craved. I stuck with that approach for a fair while, but in the last couple of years, I’ve started to get caught more often than I’d like on my forearms. Every goalkeeper has had that bruise – you know the one I mean: A ball-shaped one complete with dimples in between your wrist and your elbow on the inside. I put the increase in frequency of getting hit down to being older and slower than before and decided that I’d venture into a different set up once again.
Enter: Mercian’s Lightweight Armguards (pictured above). These offer exactly what I was looking for. They’ve got a plastic cup to protect the elbow, so no more of those skin-removing grazes I was getting. But they also have excellent bicep and forearm protection. The forearm protection is the key for me. I’ve been hit a couple of times whilst wearing them (old and slow, as covered already) and luckily not ended up with quite as much bruising and quite as much pain. A life saver. They’re lightweight and stretchy and have a mesh panel to keep you from overheating, and I have to say, at the risk of going full Ned Flanders, when I’m playing, it really feels like I’m wearing “nothing at all.”
Obviously as with any protective equipment, there will be shots that hit you in a certain way that you’ll still get a bit of pain and maybe a bruise but I have to say, having tried many different arm guard set ups over the years, these are the closest to the Holy Grail of movement and protection I’ve found. Good forearm protection, good elbow protection, comfortable, flexible and easy to move in. Oh and also, they aren’t too pricey either. Tremendous. I’d highly recommend them.
If you’d like to take a look at the armguards, they’re on the Mercian Hockey Website, here.
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