SOUTHEND United’s selection of shot-stoppers are in safe hands, with the youngest goalkeeping coach in the Football League, Terry Mason.

The 33-year-old has stepped up from working with the club’s centre of excellence to train Blues’ first team keepers.

And Mason is loving his involvement in the senior set up.

“It’s been great because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” said Mason, who has been with Southend for nearly seven years.

“I may be the youngest goalkeeping coach in the league, but I’ve been coaching for 15 years and do have plenty of experience.

“That’s been a big help for me when it’s come to working with the first team keepers because it is very different to coaching the youngsters.

“In the first team it’s very much about the next game and not so much about the long term future.

“But all the keepers we have here train very hard and they’re great to work with.”

Mason’s own playing career started at Cambridge United where he served an apprenticeship before being released.

He then dropped down to play in the non-league before his coaching career then started to take off and led to him stop playing.

“I started working with the academy players at Peterborough, which is where I live,” said Mason.

“I was working with Dan Ashworth, who is now the new head of the FA’s technical staff and things carried on from there really.

“I’ve now done my coaching badges and in the next six months I will have my final assessment to get my goalkeeping A licence.”

That will provide Mason with yet another boost but he has already introduced a number of initiatives to the goalkeeping set up at Roots Hall .

“We now record all of our training sessions on a Thursday and will go through them together, as well as all of the matches,” said Mason.

“Mistakes will always happen because that’s part and parcel of being a goalkeeping.

“But we’ll look at it again, speak about it, work on making sure it doesn’t happen again and then move on.

“That’s what we do with the keepers here and it’s great to have someone as experienced as Paul Smith to work with as well as Dan Bentley, Luke Chambers and Ted Smith who are all very exciting prospects.

“And working together we will try to ensure they all improve.”

>If you are interested in receiving professional goalkeeping coaching from Terry Mason contact terry@ tmgoalkeepingacademy.co.uk