Ben Foster knows all about life in the goldfish bowl.
Having played for England and spent 15 years in the Premier League, including a five-season stint with Manchester United, the goalkeeper is used to scrutiny. So the adulation Wrexham experienced on their recent tour of the USA was nothing new.
What Foster did enjoy, however, was watching how his team-mates handled the pressure in a country that turned out in huge numbers to watch a club from League Two — the fourth tier of the English game.
“It was nice seeing the attention that comes with this club and then how the lads react to it,” Foster tells The Athletic. “A lot of these lads will never have had that intense media scrutiny before, where they are being watched wherever they go. Or with fans coming up all the time.
“It is mad to see. Honestly. We landed in Washington D.C. and were all queueing in passport control and there’s American kids there who all knew who we were. You’d pass them in the line and they’d say, ‘I have a Wrexham top at home’.
“I’m seeing this and thinking, ‘Wow! These are American kids’. If you’re a player with Manchester United, and all the big-name players they have, you expect that sort of attention. But this was Wrexham — and it’s brilliant.”
Ben Foster with fans at the U.S. friendly against Chelsea (Photo: Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
Wrexham proved a big hit during their fortnight in the United States, with thousands of fans who have fallen in love with the north Wales club via the Welcome to Wrexham documentary series turning out for their four matches in North Carolina, Los Angeles, San Diego and Philadelphia.
The pneumothorax — effectively a collapsed lung — and four cracked ribs suffered by star striker Paul Mullin against United in San Diego certainly dented that off-field success, especially as the club’s talisman is now facing an extended spell on the sidelines with the EFL season about to kick off.
Now, though, the focus turns to the new season and Saturday’s opener against Milton Keynes Dons at the Racecourse Ground — or to use its new sponsored name, the SToK Cae Ras.
For Foster, it represents a return to the EFL that was certainly not on the cards when announcing his decision to retire last September after rejecting a number of offers, including from the Premier League’s Newcastle United and from MLS.
He was happy with life then. A burgeoning social-media career, including podcasts and matchday videos, was keeping the former World Cup ‘keeper busy.
An SOS phone call from north Wales, however, changed everything, as the club who had played an unwitting role in Foster joining Manchester United in the first place — Sir Alex Ferguson spotted his potential in the 2005 Football League Trophy final when watching son Darren captain a Wrexham side containing the then-Stoke City loanee — looked to sign a goalkeeper for the National League run-in.
Darren Ferguson (left) leads Wrexham’s 2005 Football League Trophy celebrations, with Ben Foster in the background (Photo: Paul Gilham/Getty Images)
Once on board, Foster found his new pursuits dovetailed beautifully with a return to football.
As Wrexham closed in on the fifth-tier title, Foster playing a pivotal role with the stoppage time penalty save in that win over promotion rivals Notts County, footage from his GoPro camera during matches went viral as fans enjoyed a rare insight into what happens on the field.
Once Wrexham were up, Foster had to make a big decision. Did he stay on for another year, or go out on a high and return to the retirement he had been enjoying so much?
“I decided probably after the Notts County game that I wanted to keep playing for Wrexham,” he says. “It was such a special day. For me personally, the 30 seconds of saving the penalty, the ball going out for a corner and then Elliot Lee clearing it off the line — that’s probably as good as it gets.
“Honestly, if you could bottle those 30 seconds as adrenaline, you’d have the best time of your life. The highs and lows were just phenomenal. So, after that, I always thought I’d stay but I knew for definite after Boreham Wood (the game when Wrexham clinched promotion).
“The scenes afterwards were incredible, with the pitch invasion, the fans hoisting me on their shoulders and the flares. To be part of that was very special. I knew then I couldn’t walk away.”
The impact of Welcome to Wrexham is clear for all to see, be it via the legions of fans who flocked to watch the team on tour in the U.S. or an annual turnover for the club that this season could top £20million ($25.5m). For new signings, however, the show has another use.
“I did a crash-course of the documentary when I signed,” says Foster, who made eight international appearances for England and was in many squads between 2007-14, in a career that has also included stints at Stoke, Birmingham City, West Bromwich Albion and Watford, as well as Manchester United.
“I don’t watch too much TV, if I’m honest. I’m a YouTube guy. But, when I knew I was signing, I sat down the night before and rattled through something like six or seven episodes. I then met the lads the following day for the first time and rattled through another six or seven that night. It is a great watch. I’m not just saying that; it really whetted my appetite for coming here.
“Just seeing how the lads were around each other made me realise this was going to be a good dressing room. There’s no stars, just everyone mucking in — we don’t have individual (assigned) pegs at the stadium, unlike a lot of clubs. You find a peg and put your stuff on it.
“The documentary was really useful in other ways, too. It helped me learn a bit about the background of the club itself. Don’t get me wrong, I’d been here before obviously (that half-season loan from Stoke in 2005) so, I knew a bit, including the area and the fans and the people.
“But the club had changed massively in those 17, 18 years since I last played here — which wasn’t long before Wrexham got relegated into non-League. Now, everything is so different.”
Wrexham’s revival after years in the doldrums is down to Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, the two Hollywood actors whose takeover in February 2021 put the club on the global stage.
That star factor, however, is only half the story with the accompanying on-field success under Phil Parkinson, a manager with four promotions to his name and a knack of forging a strong dressing room, giving the narrative legs.
Ryan Reynolds (centre) and Rob McElhenney (Photo: Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
Throughout his career, the 55-year-old has made a point of sitting down any prospective new signing, often over a cup of tea, to assess for himself whether their personality will be a good fit. Some deals have been called off at the eleventh hour if Parkinson gets a bad vibe from a player and no one is exempt from the meeting rule, even former England internationals dropping down to the fifth tier.
“Yes, we had a chat,” says Foster when asked about his own arrival last March. “It was over Zoom. An agent had got in touch initially, just to ask if I was interested. I ummed and aahed quite a bit before eventually saying, ‘Sweet’. This agent then says, ‘Good, because Phil wants to give you a call and sound you out’.
“I came away thinking, ‘Am I on trial here or something?’. But I liked that. Anyway, we had the Zoom and Phil starts telling me this and that, what the club is about and a few other things. Then there was one point where he said to me, ‘This isn’t what you’re used to, so I need to know you’re ready for this and up for it’. I sensed he meant something when saying it, trying to read me. Test me out, if you like.
“Looking back, what he probably didn’t want was a throwaway remark, saying something easy like, ‘Yeah, sweet’. I sensed he wanted me to have the response of, ‘Yeah, let’s have it’. Which is exactly how I felt. That is my character anyway.
“If I say I’m doing something, I’ll give it everything I’ve got. There and then, I promised to give him everything I’ve got for the next six weeks/eight games. And that’s what I did.”
Foster’s decision to come out of retirement meant the return of his matchday vlogs, via the GoPro camera he started putting in the back of his goal when playing for Watford.
The channel, called ‘The Cycling GK’, racked up big numbers, including 3.7 million views for the Notts County episode in its first couple of weeks online.
Having filmed in the EFL before when in the second-tier Championship with Watford, he plans to keep the vlogs coming now Wrexham are once again hosting League football.
“GoPro offers an insight that fans maybe don’t get,” says Foster. “I think fans really enjoy seeing how I communicate with people. Could be at a corner. Or the way I talk to my defenders. Or a bit of banter with the striker. Things you probably normally don’t see.
“To me, that’s the next level of closeness after the TV cameras. I get the impression that’s what people really love. Long may it continue. Another 46 episodes would be nice this season — providing no one nicks it (the camera).
“Fans are always trying to steal it. At Halifax (when Wrexham lost 3-1 on Good Friday) their fans would rush on the pitch after each goal and I could see a couple were eyeing it up. I’m thinking, ‘Don’t you dare!’.”
That defeat at Halifax proved a watershed in Wrexham’s season, with the players using the disappointment as motivation to push on and clinch the title. For Foster, that visit to The Shay also brought home the major difference he has found in the lower divisions when compared to his 15 seasons in the Premier League.
(Photo: Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
“You hear everything shouted at you when playing at this level,” he says with a smile. “That just doesn’t happen at Manchester United, where the stands are just too big. It means any individual voices are lost.
“But at places like Halifax, you hear every word. And I mean every single word of abuse, as those shouting it were about two metres behind me. Literally hanging over the (pitchside) railings.
“There will be 50-100 lads behind the goal, calling me this, that and the other. Absolute dog’s abuse. If I slip, there’ll be this big, ‘Wahey!’. Or there’ll be the ‘You fat bastard’ shouts. That’s just how it goes. I’m expecting it at every game this season, as League Two will be no different.
“As long as you expect that sort of thing, it’s not a problem. As goalies, it is just how things are. We are the spoilers — the ones who stop the goals going in — so opposition fans don’t like us.
“To be fair, all the lads face similar. It’s probably because we are the team to be shot at. Again, that won’t change this season. What it also does is show how strong they are as people, as they had to deal with it over a full season whereas I just came in for the last eight games.
“To deal with that pressure and scrutiny, and still go on to break all those (National League) records says everything about these lads.”
(Top photo: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)
