Former England goalkeeper Ben Foster was happily retired, but his eye-catching move to Wrexham took just three days to be finalised. “It’s funny how things work in football,” Foster’s agent, Richard Lee, tells The Athletic. “It’s one of the most creative deals I’ve been involved in.”
From Sliding Doors moments in south-east London to Hollywood’s Ryan Reynolds sliding into DMs on more than one occasion, it is a tale of the unexpected but also one that makes sense, rolling career-arc romance and a burgeoning retirement reinvention into one.
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The story starts last Saturday at Hayes Lane, home of fifth-tier Bromley FC, south of the River Thames and a long way from the Premier League, the level where a 39-year-old Foster made what seemed his farewell appearance last May. At half-time, the anguish on the face of Wrexham goalkeeper Rob Lainton was a clear sign his knee injury was serious and that Mark Howard would be needed to deputise.
Lee was watching the game 3,500 miles (5,500km) away in Dubai as one of his clients, Sam Long, on loan from Lincoln City of third-tier League One, was making his debut in goal for Bromley.
Wrexham won 2-1 to go four points clear at the top of the National League but Long’s performance inspired Reynolds, who was watching online back in the US, to track him down on Instagram and send him a private message of support.
When news of that contact with the 20-year-old was shared with Lee and his agency’s co-director Sam Winstanley, they were not yet aware that a Wrexham move for Foster was starting to bubble.
The next morning Winstanley, who has contacts at the Welsh club, followed up on Lainton’s injury to check if a replacement was being sought. “They basically said no, unless there was someone who could come in and help the goalkeeper department, then they’d look at it,” says Lee, who specialises in trading goalkeepers between clubs.
Winstanley checked in with Lee. Did they have anyone in mind who might be able to fulfil the brief? It wasn’t too long before Foster’s name came up, and the idea of him coming out of retirement a couple of weeks before turning 40 was floated to the club.
Lee was in regular touch with Foster, whose most recent game was 10 months ago in Watford’s 5-1 home defeat to Leicester City and who holds the record for the most Premier League saves in a career — 1,248, following his release at the end of last season after their relegation to the EFL. In September, Lee set up a deal for him to go to top-flight Newcastle United as a reserve, but Foster decided his heart wasn’t in it, rejected the move and retired.
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He had discussed joining Atlanta United in MLS and following his retirement, there was an outside chance that Hugo Lloris’ current injury at Tottenham Hotspur would create an opening there. Other offers came and went, but it was YouTubing and podcasting that filled Foster’s time, not football, albeit with the door to a comeback left slightly ajar.
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“Ben had been flirting with it and I started to piece it together in my mind — maybe there could be something a little bit creative here,” said Lee.
Lee chose Foster’s business partner and on-screen sidekick Tom Ochoa as an initial sounding board. He had helped set up the Cycling GK YouTube channel, which now has 1.2million subscribers. Wrexham’s new-found global reach with Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s ownership, plus further exposure in the Disney+ documentary series Welcome to Wrexham, could help improve those numbers.
“We talked about the opportunities that could come from it,” says Lee, who also turned out in goal for Watford in his playing days.
He’s back!
🔴⚪ #WxmAFC pic.twitter.com/FpuGIfdWk1
— Wrexham AFC (@Wrexham_AFC) March 23, 2023
With the good-for-business box ticked, next came the football side of things. Foster had been keeping himself fit with regular indoor and outdoor cycling, gym work and running, and it did not take him long to say yes. “The buzz of playing again inspired him, so we went back to Wrexham,” Lee says.
That meant Winstanley and Lee set up calls with manager Phil Parkinson, who wanted to talk directly to Foster.
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The conversation between manager and prospective player centred on whether the latter was in the right place physically (his 40th birthday is on April 3) and mentally for the challenge of a promotion run-in. Parkinson emerged from it with peace of mind but gave Foster a reality check about the level of football in the National League. “I don’t need any glitz or glamour. I’m a low-maintenance player,” Foster explained on his latest podcast.
By Tuesday, negotiations could advance involving the Wrexham hierarchy, in consultation with their US-based owners. Foster is the club’s highest-profile signing under the new regime but it is a short-term deal, so won’t break the bank. “It was the easiest conversation. Wages-wise, it’s peanuts,” Foster said.
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With Lee based in Dubai, it was Winstanley who accompanied Foster to sign the papers at the Racecourse Ground on Thursday morning. The moment was, naturally, captured by the Welcome to Wrexham camera crew.
After the initial announcement, he trained for the first time with his new team-mates in driving rain and wind and wound back the years to the start of his professional career. It was on loan at Wrexham, then a League One side, from Stoke City of the Championship for the second half of the 2004-05 season that a 22-year-old Foster got his big break.
His 21 games on loan included playing in a 2-0 win over Southend United in the EFL Trophy final. Darren Ferguson scored one of the goals that day and his father, managerial legend Sir Alex, was in the crowd. The Manchester United boss was so impressed with Foster that he signed him that summer.
Foster went on to make almost 400 Premier League appearances and play eight times for England, including a clean sheet against Costa Rica in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
What are your memories of that day?
🔴⚪ #WxmAFC pic.twitter.com/dc1pG8xhGY
— Wrexham AFC (@Wrexham_AFC) March 23, 2023
“He knows it’s a perfect ending to his story and that was a big driver,” says Lee.
Foster plans to start making matchday video diaries and may put a GoPro in the back of his net, as he did during the crowd-free COVID-19 pandemic games with Watford. But he says he will remain fully focused on the run-in, which includes a home game against title rivals Notts County on Easter Monday, April 10. Only one club can go up to the EFL automatically.
“He’s a big personality, he won’t be shy. He will be a positive influence in the dressing room, but he knows it’s not The Ben Foster Show,” Lee says.
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When the deal was concluded, Foster received a private message on social media from Reynolds congratulating him, but there had been history between the two.
After the US takeover in 2021, Foster had dropped Reynolds a message himself asking if he would one day come on his podcast. It got no response. The actor apologised for not replying until this week but the pair will now meet face-to-face, and yes, that podcast appearance is finally on the cards.
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“He sounds like the absolute dream,” said Foster of Reynolds during a radio appearance on Thursday. “He’s completely into it.”
The feeling will be mutual between Foster and his new Hollywood pals if he helps get Wrexham back to the Football League over the remaining eight matches, ending their 15 years in exile.
Although there is no option in the contract to extend his short-term deal, “stranger things have happened,” Lee says.
(Top photo: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)