Growing gooseberries as standards

[mothhawk]

I've ten gooseberry cuttings I want to turn into standards. They're about 8" - 10" tall and healthy. Do I just keep pinching out any sideshoots that grow, until they are tall enough, and then let them bush? Only they don't seem to want to grow taller, instead of one obvious leader they all seem to try to sprout two or three at the top. I pinch one out each time, but it means they are not nice and straight, but have little kinks up the stem where I've removed one shoot each time.

Any advice or ideas would be really helpful.

[FB.]

Pinching encourages branching.
My preferred method for creating a long straight stem with fruit trees is to leave the main stem unpruned but trim off the side branches along the stem each winter.
Normally, this means no pruning at all until the second winter after propagating the plant. In the second winter the removal of lower unwated side branches begins. The central leader is not removed until the season after branches have formed at the desired level.

The following picture is a MM111 apple tree showing what happens if a leader tip is left unpruned (the side branches formed about 4-5ft above ground and the central leader was removed at the end of the season because I no longer needed to lengthen the stem as the trunk was the 4-5ft required for a half-standard tree - if I had wanted a full standard tree with 6-7ft trunk I would have left the leader and removed the side branches):

[mothhawk]

Thanks for the advice FB. I'll leave them alone until winter then, didn't realise I was encouraging them to branch. thanks.