With a new school year and new lacrosse season around the corner, England Lacrosse has announced that all levels of women's lacrosse will require goggles to be worn. Not ideal timing and you have to wonder why such 11th hour announcement and hardly surprising that there has been a stampede of players and parents ordering lacrosse goggles.
Although we had a heads up mid July from the governing body, the timing of the announcement will be a challenge for many teams at Universities, clubs and schools in terms of budgets but more importantly in supply.
Here at Northern Soul we carry not only the widest selection of lacrosse goggles in Europe but also carry the largest stock levels and yet even we are concerned that there just might not be enough to go around. It's worth taking a moment to explain that the US brands have never really taken in to account when the lacrosse season starts outside of North America, their season is way off starting and yet our is at the time of writing this blog just weeks away. STX are without doubt the biggest supplier of lacrosse goggles offering the most comprehensive range at various price points and yet today they have ZERO stock of the cheapest model STX 4 Sight S goggles available. That's not to say their warehouse is empty, the stock is committed to orders by retailers for the forthcoming seasons.
The demand for goggles has grown in recent years with many schools here in the UK making them compulsory over the past 4 years and a growing number of mainland European leagues enforcing the use of goggles. When the second biggest market for women's lacrosse equipment suddenly makes goggles mandatory then that could present a big problem. We are unlikely to sell out of goggles but we are highly likely to sell out of the lower cost goggles very quickly!
If you need a little assistance when it comes to which goggles you should buy then please visit our lacrosse goggles buying guide.
Goggles will also be required to be worn by men playing mixed lacrosse. Look out soon for a YouTube video and a blog here giving some guidance of sizing as many models simply will not fit correctly.
You can read the full England Lacrosse statement here.