International Goalkeeping

Towson, Kristen was asked to join the Leadership council, a role intended to develop into a captain's position, and was also awarded the Iron Tiger Award, recognizing a strong commitment to the team on and off the field. Following her career at Towson University, she traveled overseas to play in Ireland where she joined top rated Dublin side Raheny United (current Women's National League champions and Women's Football Association of Ireland cup champions). In Ireland, Sample trained with the semi-professional men's goalkeepers at Phoenix F.C. and also coached the youth goalkeeper's in the club. The year in Ireland ended with a trip to Belgrade, Serbia where Sample was the goalkeeper coach of the team that represented Ireland in the European Street Football Championship. After a year in Ireland, Sample moved to Durham, England to represent the Durham Wildcats Football Club as well as the Durham University Women's Athletic Football Club (DUWAFC) for the 2011-2012 season. At the end of 2012, DUWAFC had won the league, futsal cup, and league cup, while the wildcats competed in the league championship as well as the FA Cup. In addition to Durham's training, a great highlight of being at Durham was the access to Hartlepool United FC's (HUFC) training. HUFC's goalkeeper coach was former Manchester United and middlesborough standout Gary Walsh, who allowed Sample to not only watch sessions, but jump in with the senior professional goalkeeper's for training. By the end of the year, Sample was training with a men's professional team, and a men's semi-professional team (Bishop Auckland FC), and was asked to sign for Women's professional side Sunderland AFC and semi-professional side Brighton and Hove Albion FC. At this point, coaching became the stronger desire. After learning from the Irish and English styles as well as training and sitting in on other European Team sessions, Australia was the next stop. In 6 months in Sydney, Kristen worked with the Narrabeen Sports High School team, specifically the goalkeepers, John Crawley's Elite Goalkeeper Academy, Semi-profession club Manly United's female goalkeepers, and Seaforth United's youth goalkeepers. Through all of these experiences, IGK was formed with the idea that the game continues to evolve and with it, so should training techniques and ideas. Different countries, especially different regions, play the game differently, and so the role of the goalkeeper and how they train is different. Preparing goalkeeper's for different situations and different styles of play, helps develop a more complete goalkeeper, and that is the mission of IGK.