Kick Off with Garden Street!

The new Football season is well underway and perhaps it has motivated you to play some sport in your back garden, or maybe invite your family and friends down to the local park for a kick around. You could even be a club or event organiser looking at additional equipment to help train or play. Whatever the reason or motivation, Garden Street has you covered!

Starting Out with the Basics…

First and foremost, let us talk Footballs! The Football Association (The FA) recommends that size 4 footballs are suitable for children ages 9 to 14, and size 5 footballs are suitable for adults/children above 14. These recommendations can help to optimise football development levels, adhering to FA standards. Size 4 footballs are also suitable for adults who wish to improve their football control and first touch, with the smaller sizes requiring more skill to control. For smaller children, or that samba style practice, why not choose a size 2 ball?
The footballs we provide are manufactured by the popular brand Mitre, so quality here is not a problem. Regardless of the fact if you wanted to train professional with your chosen football or purely for recreational use you are still going to want a quality football that would meet all safety regulations, and lets not forget its going to be taking a large number of hits so you’re going to want it to last for as long as possible!

Practice Makes Perfect

Before racing onto the pitch perhaps you’d like to get a spot of training in first? A brilliant way to practice those passes, volleys, headers and such look no further than a Rebounder. While they may look like an oddly shaped goal, the concept of these training aids is to return the ball back in your direction. So, for example if you strike a football directly at the netting area it will hit the net and bounce back in your direction. Strike the ball so that it hits the rebounder at an angle and the ball will reflect off the net, again back towards you but at angle which reflects the manner of which struck. This allows for the practice of key football techniques such as volleys or headers. The velocity of the shot will also be reflected in how it returns as the netting won’t reduce the power. The stronger you hit it, the quicker it’ll return. A number of our rebounders have a large red spot in the middle of the netting. Simply put this provides the player with a location to aim for to improve general striking accuracy.

Also available online is a Pro Rebounder, which is much the same as the standard version, only this one has a further ‘second’ component which is low to the ground making it more ideal to practice ground passing. The Pro Rebounder has a larger netting area too, which makes it easier to involve more players to engage in the same training session. This is of course still possible on the slightly smaller rebounders however the Pro version does provide a little more space.

Heavy Hitters

For those budding strikers who want to improve the power of their shots (or perhaps for those parents that don’t want smashed back windows) we also stock a Quick Hit Net. Like the rest of the Kickster range it is incredibly easy to store, move and assemble. Whereas the rebounders are designed to reflect shots the Hit Nets are for those who are more interested in pure power. The net will ‘catch’ the ball stopping the object in its tracks, again this could be a football, cricket or tennis ball for example. No returning here, just a chance to test out shot power,  possibly even your serving swing or bowling prowess.

Match Day

So, you’ve got your football, you’ve done some basic training (or not, in some cases!) it maybe now time to think about football goals. Once again, depending on who the target audience is, whether or not you are after a gift for your children, something for you and your friends to enjoy or perhaps a set for more professional usage we do offer various goal size options. Take the Kickster Academy Football Goal 6X4, perfectly suited for those younger ones wanting to enjoy a kick around with friends in a park or back garden. For those a little older both our Samba and Kickster ranges have adult-sized goals ready to be set up.

Why not buy two and have a proper full match?

For those more professional setups we do also offer a bench system for those substitutes and assistants awaiting pitch side to play their part. Once again by one of our popular ranges, the Kickster 4 Seat Modular Bench works hand in hand with our Shelter, giving your subs, assistants and managers somewhere out of the elements to sit or stand during the match. Assembly takes only a few minutes and folds down for easy storage. Both the shelter and the bench are incredibly light weight so manoeuvrability is no issue here.

GOOOOOOAAAAAALLLL!!!

You can check out our full list of footballing products here. Alternatively check out the links below for our individual ranges. Many of our football-related products have guides and further information over on our YouTube channel. A playlist of some of our popular Kickster range can be found embedded below: