Joe Rose became Norwich City’s first scholar to play in goal for the Under-23s during the 2019-20 season, so it’s been a memorable campaign for the youngster.
In a feature that originally appeared in OTBC, our official award-winning matchday programme, we spoke to Tim Krul, Archie Mair, Joe Rose and goalkeeping coaches Ed Wootten and Tom Weal to understand the factors that contribute to the success.
Next up, Joe Rose…
canaries.co.uk: What do you put the success of our keepers down to?
JR: It’s a good bunch of lads and we all work well together. We all want the best for each other and help each other out every day.
When Daniel Barden and Archie Mair get international callups we congratulate them and push them to keep getting them to better themselves, as well as trying to be better than them ourselves.
canaries.co.uk: How much do Tom Weal and Ed Wootten help you with that?
JR: Massively. Every day they call us in for meetings as a team and we go through clips of other goalkeepers during the week to discuss what they could be doing better and what they’ve done well.
It’s good team bonding and they also help us to meet a certain standard every single day at training so that we don’t slip, and we keep on progressing.
canaries.co.uk: It can only be a good thing to have the different backgrounds of the first-team keepers as well.
JR: It is so beneficial to learn how our goalkeepers work where they’re from compared to how we work here. Tim talks about how important it is to be a character and he shows it on the pitch and every day in training.
canaries.co.uk: The modern-day goalkeeper has to have good outfield skills, is that emphasised from a young age?
JR: It’s one of the biggest things that defines us nowadays. It didn’t used to be a big aspect but every day our drills consist of footwork and distribution because it’s a massive part of the game.
We do our goalkeeper sessions sometimes before the others so we can get 45 minutes to do our own stuff with our hands, then we’ll usually be involved with the other players because it’s important we’re at the same level as them with a ball at our feet.