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Ben Foster made nearly 400 Premier League appearances during a long playing career – in retirement, he’s had plenty of success too.
Foster played in the top flight for Manchester United, Watford, Birmingham City and West Bromwich Albion, also earning eight caps for England, including lining up for the Three Lions at the 2014 World Cup.
"Hi, it's Robbie Williams"
When Foster risked EFL sanctions to put a GoPro camera in his goal for Watford’s Championship fixture against Luton in 2020, he didn’t anticipate that it would lead to a visit from Robbie Williams. That’s what happened two years later though.
“Robbie got in touch and said ‘Love everything you’re doing, I watch every episode – if you ever want me on as a guest, I’d love to’,” Foster tells FFT now.
“I was like ‘Oh my god, it’s Robbie Williams!’ He’s a legend. He came to the office one night and sat with us for hours, honestly for hours.
“He did the podcast, then sat with us for another hour afterwards, just chatting. Such a lovely guy. He doesn’t watch telly, he just loves watching YouTube. He loves Mark Goldbridge!”
Williams has been one of a long list of famous guests on The Fozcast, which began in 2021. Emi Martinez is another that stands out. “It was off the back of winning the World Cup – the detail he went into about his save in the last minute, the big foot save," Foster says.
“He broke it down and spoke about seeing Randal Kolo Muani come through, how he looked at his eyes and head position before he shot.
“Kolo Muani’s head was down, he didn’t know where in the goal to aim, so Emi knew he was just going to kick it. He said ‘That made my decision to do a spread instead of waiting to pick a corner’.
“The detail he went into, that gets my juices flowing. Goalkeepers are all about detail and little fine movements. He really went into it and at the end of it, I was just like ‘Wow, that was incredible’.”
"I was nervous about it"
Prior to that, Foster started the Cycling GK YouTube channel in 2020, combining videos of him going on cycling adventures to places like the Cheddar Gorge and even Paris, with GoPro footage of Watford matches, when he sometimes also wore a chest camera. His YouTube career all started with the derby against Luton.
“I had the idea of putting the GoPro in the goal – I didn’t know what it would look like or if I was allowed to do it,” Foster explains.
“I was supposed to do it in the first half and put it in my towel to take out, then absolutely sh*t myself and left it in the changing room, because I was nervous about it. But I took it out in the second half – we put the video out afterwards and everybody was like ‘This is unreal’.
“That’s how it all started, then it grew – the more videos we put out, the more viewers we got, the more subscribers and everything just popped off. Everybody really loved seeing the peek behind the curtain.”
He branched out ever further after being a guest on Jack Dean and Stevie White’s podcast, which features a range of different celebrities. “I went on Jack's Happy Hour podcast and afterwards I was chatting with him and Stevie,” Foster remembers.
“I said ‘Is this all you need for a podcast?’ Because they were just in a dark room, a few cameras and microphones. He said ‘You should start a podcast, you’re half good at talking’.
“So we started a podcast, speaking to creators and sports people, and it got off to a really good start, so much so that within the first couple of months, Spotify got in touch and said ‘We’re looking for somebody that could be an exclusive podcast for Spotify, would you be interested?’ We’ve been with them ever since.
“It’s turned into a football podcast since then, but I like to think we’re still one of the only podcasts that get current footballers on as guests. I really am proud of that because it shows that they trust me – we live in a world now where everybody’s so sceptical and so scared of saying the wrong thing or being made to look a certain way. We’d never do that to anybody, we’d never try to trip you up.”
A Dier recommendation
Foster’s Cycling GK channel now has 1.45 million subscribers, many footballers among them. “I did a podcast with Eric Dier in Monaco and he said ‘At Spurs, whenever you put a video out, we’d save it for the coach journey on the Friday, and all sit there watching it on Harry Kane’s phone’," the former goalkeeper explains.
“He said ‘Everyone would just be watching it, buzzing off it, like, what’s this guy like, how is he able to go and film all this stuff, then play on a Saturday?' He was like ‘Mate, honestly, we loved you’. I was like ‘Wow, that’s incredible’. I’m really proud of the Cycling GK.”
Foster retired in 2023 after a stint at Wrexham – he also now does That Wrexham Podcast, chatting to players and others at the club. At the time of our conversation, a podcast with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney had already been provisionally pencilled in.
“I think possibly within the next six weeks or so – the next time they’re down is in another month or so, and we're going to try to tie it in then,” he says.
“They’ve been fantastic with us with regards to that podcast – it’s a club podcast, but not like everybody else does. Others do a club podcast and it’s done by the media guy at the training ground, with a certain player, but you’re never really going to get that relaxed kind of insight.
“Whereas I feel myself and Ben Tozer, who does the podcast with me, we can really put the person at ease. Because we’ve been in that arena, we know what to ask. We know we can’t dig too deep and really get some grimy stuff, but that’s not our style anyway.”
Motivation after retirement
Foster has his own production company now, CGK Studios, with ambitions to grow his various projects even further. He’s also got a joint venture with a Michelin star chef on a food channel.
His passion for it all is obvious, and has helped his adaptation to life after retirement. “If I didn’t have anything to do, I’d be worried,” he says.
“I still have times where we could be really busy for two weeks, long days, travelling a lot, but then I have three or four days off where I haven't got anything to do. Even then, in the midst of that second or third day, I’m a bit like, ‘Well, this is a bit of sh*t, really.’
“I need a proper purpose to get me out of bed every day, whether it’s work or whether it’s getting on the bike, doing fitness work.
“I need something to drive me to be productive, and a lot of footballers haven’t got that. They might not want to coach or get into the media, so what do you do? You’re starting behind everyone else, because at 35 or 36, other people have been in their careers for 10 years already. But I really enjoy what I’m doing. I love my work.
“We’ve got a fantastic following of loyal fans who watch our shows every week without fail, and we’ve got to make sure that we keep turning up for them. We’ve been going five years now.
“We were one of the first to the market, with That Peter Crouch Podcast, for example. There are so many people doing it as well now, you’ve got all the big boys coming in, your Overlaps and your Gary Linekers, who are absolutely fantastic, but have got some financial clout behind them. They have teams of 30 or 40 people working on their shows.
“If I’ve got a Fozcast going out, I might have two or three people working on it, so we’re on a bit of a back foot, but I’ve got that emotional buy-in from my listeners and viewers because they've been with me for such a long time.
“We’re continuing to get really insightful guests as well, guests that are really knowledgeable people, good at talking, who might have an interesting story to tell as well. The fact they trust me means an awful lot to me.”
Ben Foster was speaking ahead of new content from CGK Studios, the content production company behind the Fozcast and The Cycling GK. Co-founded by Foster, CGK Studios specialises in authentic, long-form storytelling across sport and culture, with the Fozcast ranking among the UK’s most popular sports podcasts. Episodes are available weekly on Spotify and YouTube.
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