Ben Foster doesn’t want a fuss, but it’s worth knowing not all footballers are about boastfulness and self-interest

AFORTNIGHT ago, Ben Foster was driving back to his home in Warwickshire after Watford’s goalless draw with Crystal Palace at Vicarage Road. Early in the journey, he and his wife noticed a man walking alone by the side of the dual carriageway and felt instinctively that something was wrong. Foster turned the car around and circled back.

By then, the man had disappeared but the former England goalkeeper got out and looked for him. He found him sprawled in a ditch. The man, a Watford season ticket holder for 50 years, seemed disoriented.

It later transpired he is in the early stages of dementia. He had been to the match and, when he could not start his car, he had decided to try to walk home.

Foster helped him into the car and he and his wife drove him back to their house. They cleaned him up. Foster asked what he was doing for Christmas and said that if he was by himself, he was welcome to spend it with them and their family. He also offered to buy the man a new Watford season ticket.

All this was reported by a grateful relative of the man on social media last week. The post went viral. It struck a chord with people. It was discussed on news bulletins and phone-in shows. Maybe it was something to do with the time of the year.

Maybe Foster’s act of kindness felt like an antidote to all the bitterness and rancour that has been washing over the country in the past few years. Maybe we have become so used to division and anger and angst and recrimination that what Foster did felt l i ke species relief.

Maybe we read so much about the wealth of footballers and their separation from society that this kind of humanity is not what we expect of them any more. Maybe it is not even what we expect of ourselves any more.

I rang Watford l ast week to arrange to speak to Foster about what he had done. I figured it would be an open goal. I mean, who in their right mind in this modern world is going to pass up the chance to talk at length about what a great bloke they are?

Watford are a progressive club, too. They encourage their players to be open and to talk. They have a great media set- up. They try to help, which is unusual. But the next day, their head of communications sent me a message. ‘Sadly, it’s a “no”,’ he said.

It turned out Foster did not want to be interviewed about his act of kindness. It turned out he didn’t fancy an elongated verbal selfie detailing his altruism and his generosity. It had not been his choice to publicise what had happened in the first place. He saw no need to elaborate now.

So I contacted a few other people i nstead. Roy Abraham was at Watford’s game against Liverpool at Anfield last weekend. He noticed

Foster warming up with t he Watford goalkeeping coach in front of the Kop before the start of the second half.

He noticed Foster applauding the Liverpool fans and having some fun with them when they would not give him the ball back.

As the rest of the players came out, he noticed Foster giving the ball to a disabled kid at the front of the stand.

‘Oh and on a related note,’ he said, just for a bit of balance, ‘Foster has made an art out of time-wasting on goal kicks. We were joking about it at the weekend. Can’t knock him for it though because he’s so likeable.’

Foster is not the type of player who walks past fans with his headphones on and pretends he can’t hear them. He’s not the type of player who drives past them in a flash car and pretends he can’t see them. He acts like a bloke who knows he’s fortunate and wants to even things up a bit.

Simon Back, an Aston Villa fan, pointed me towards a newspaper article from 2017. He had remembered it when he saw the news about Foster helping the man with dementia. ‘ My team are bitter rivals of Foster’s old club, West Brom, but many things are more important than football,’ he said.

Foster was the West Brom keeper when a mum dying of breast cancer arranged for her kids to be the Baggies’ mascots for the away game against Spurs at Wembley. Jenna Ritchie died on the eve of the game but had insisted her kids must go to the match.

‘All of the players were great,’ bereaved husband Kevin told the Birmingham Mail at the time, ‘particularly Jonny Evans and Ben Foster, who gave them loads of fuss. Ben was so touched by what had happened that on his way home he called one of the people at Albion and arranged for us to be in his executive box for the match against Arsenal on New Year’s Eve.’

The testimonials went on and on. On Twitter, the Colchester United goalkeeper Ethan Ross, who was on the bench for the Carabao Cup defeat by Manchester United last week and was a colleague of Foster at West Brom, wrote: ‘He’s the most genuine bloke you’ll meet! So lucky to have spent all my time at WBA learning from him.’

Later last week, accompanied by a caption that read ‘He Really is The Gift That Keeps on Giving’, Watford released a short video of Foster surprising a kid called Molly who was suffering from leukaemia.

While Foster hid outside, the presenter asked Molly whether her favourite Watford keeper was Foster o r Heur e l h o Gomes. ‘Gomes,’ she said. Foster grinned.

Maybe he’ll be embarrassed if he reads this. Maybe he’ll think it’s saccharine. And unnecessary. I hope not. We hear enough about boastfulness and self-interest and cynicism and cruelty in football and in society. Sometimes, it helps to dwell on something good.

Sometimes, it’s worth remembering that footballers can represent the best of us, too.

Sometimes, it is cheering to find a player a kid can l ook up t o. Sometimes, it’s worth remembering not all footballers are about tinted windows and jeroboams of champagne.

Maybe another Watford fan, Charlie Babington, summed it up best with a simple message he sent to Foster on Twitter. ‘Proud to have you at our club, Ben,’ it said.