Being a father of three girls, who I’ve had the privilege of coaching in several sports, I’ve noticed how the female sporting gear market does not fully meet the needs of female athletes.
The focus of almost all pieces of athletic equipment is the male athlete. Often the only design difference for the female equipment is in the color or graphics. Yet, the female and male bodies differ in many ways.
This became even more obvious to me as I coached female goalkeepers. I saw there were female soccer shoes, female jerseys, (female golf clubs, female bikes…) but no female goalkeeper gloves. It was obvious that the gloves on the market were not properly fitting the hands of my goalkeepers. They were too long in the fingers, too wide at the palm, and too bulky to get a great feel on the ball.
So my favorite goalkeeper, Abigail, (who just happens to be my middle daughter) and I started talking about what needed to be done differently. The first step was to determine if there was an actual physical difference between male hands and female hands. We found that there are 4 main differences; width, thumb size, pinky size, and the ratio between the pointer and ring finger. If you’d like to know more about these differences visit our home page.
The next step was contacting current glove companies. We contacted over 20 goalkeeper glove companies to see if they wanted to make a model specifically for women goalkeepers. Some companies never responded and the ones that did were not interested. Since none of the 20 plus companies (both big and small companies many of you know) valued the female goalkeeper enough to make a glove specifically designed for you, we created keepher.
keepher is now the first and only goalkeeper company to have gloves specifically for you, the female goalkeeper. This is all we do. We focus 100% of our time, money, research, and efforts into developing gloves that will fit your hand properly while functioning at the highest level possible.
When you buy a pair of keepher gloves you will get excellent grip (Giga or contact latex), removable finger saves, and quality material used in all parts of the glove. Equally important you will notice that the glove fits better than ones you are currently using. Plus we let you use the gloves for two weeks; if they are not working for you the way you like they can be exchange for a different model.
When you buy cleats do you look at the men’s cleats first and then the women’s cleats? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. Now when you buy gloves you can look at gloves from keepher; a company that is completely dedicated to the proper fit, function, and feel of women’s goalkeeper gloves.
Ask your local soccer shop to stock our gloves and if they are not available you can purchase gloves online at our website.
Have a great season!
Doug Diller, owner of keepHer, is a Portland Thorns fan who loves pizza, Star Wars and napping.