Ben Bradshaw: Double Knot your laces

Ben Bradshaw's first memory of soccer has nothing to do with a save, a goal, or even a ball. He was five years old, lined up with every other kid on his team, and the coach went down the row checking that everyone's shoes were tied. Then the coach told them all to go home and tell their parents to double-knot them so they would not come undone during a game.

That is it. That is where this story starts. A five-year-old with his laces checked by a stranger on a field somewhere in Richmond. From that group, there is at least one player who has been there with Ben the entire way, from that very first day to where he is now. It is the kind of thing you only notice looking back.

Ben comes from a soccer family. His dad is from England. The sport was always in the house. But when it came time to choose an activity, Ben did not exactly leap at the opportunity. His parents told him he had to play a sport. He did not have to play soccer, but he had to pick something. He looked at his options and figured soccer was easier than starting over somewhere else. So he stayed.

He played on the wing for years. He will tell you himself that he was nothing special out there. Just a kid on a team, running around, doing what his coaches asked. The position did not mean much to him. Soccer did not mean much to him. Not yet.

Then one afternoon, everything changed.

The team had a designated goalkeeper, but that player only ever wanted to play half the game in net. On this particular day, Ben showed up late. His parents had been out visiting friends. By the time he arrived, the coach needed a body between the posts for the second half. He picked Ben.

Ben did not want to go in. He cried. He pleaded with his coach not to make him do it. But the coach put him in anyway.

Something happened in that half. Whatever it was, it was enough. The next training session, Ben walked up to his coach and said he wanted to try goalkeeping full time. The coach brought him over to the goalkeeper training group and introduced him. The coach running that group was Marius, a former Vancouver Whitecaps player. He said sure, and Ben started training with the keepers that day.

He split time at first. Half the game in net, half the game outfield. But the calls started coming more often. Other teams in the club needed a goalkeeper and Ben kept getting asked. He was playing up a year in many cases, getting two games a week, and by the time the next season rolled around he was named to the A team as the full-time keeper.

The kid who cried when they put him in goal was now choosing it every single time.

The Itch

At Richmond, Ben was good. Too good for what was in front of him.

Playing on the Division 1 and 2 teams, the games were lopsided in ways that made it hard to develop. Final scores of 6-0, 5-0, 9-0. His team was winning, but Ben was standing in net with almost nothing to do. For a goalkeeper, that is not winning. That is waiting.

He knew he could play at a higher level. The problem was that he had no idea what that higher level actually looked like. He had never been to a BCSPL game. He had never watched SPL goalkeepers play. He had confidence in himself but nothing to measure it against. The gap between believing you belong and proving you belong is wide, and Ben was standing on one side of it with no way to see the other.

Two of his teammates, Gunner and Arthur, had been around the program playing Division 1 before a large group of players from the SPL team departed. They started telling Ben he should come try out. That was the nudge.

By January 2025, the restlessness had turned into a decision. Ben wanted to leave Richmond. He wanted to find out what he was made of.

The Long Way Around

What followed was not a straight line. It was nearly a year of doors opening halfway and then closing.

Ben's first opportunity came through Fusion FC. He went out for a single goalkeeper training session, expecting to work with the Division 1 group. Instead, the staff asked him to come train with the SPL team. He was shocked. SPL had not even been on his radar as a realistic option, and here they were inviting him in after one session. He spent a few weeks with the group and felt good about it. Then the coaching staff told him they were not taking any new players at that time. He could keep coming to some sessions, and they would look at it again the following year. It was not a no, but it was not close to a yes either.

His next shot was with TSS. He committed fully. Two training sessions a week for eight months straight. He was still playing with Richmond on the weekends, and his coach there knew he was looking to move on. Ben put in the work and kept showing up.

Then came a coaching change at TSS. Training paused for about a month. When it resumed under the new coach, Ben kept at it for another five months. Eight months total. Then, in the final two weeks, another goalkeeper appeared. Someone Ben knew. A keeper from Fusion who was strong with his feet, which was a quality TSS valued highly in their system. After eight months of work, with a new face showing up right at the end, TSS chose the other goalkeeper.

Ben went back to Fusion. Not because he had run out of ambition, but because the opposite had happened. Eight months of training at a higher level had confirmed what he already suspected. He belonged there. He wanted to play at a level where recruitment and long-term development were realistic goals, and that was not going to happen at Richmond. The SPL was where he needed to be.

When he returned to Fusion, the 2011 age group had already finished their season, so he trained with the 2010s. The coaching staff liked what they saw. Then he trained in a split session between the 2012s and 2010s so the team could evaluate him directly.

He did all of this while fighting mononucleosis. He lost twelve pounds in a month. He could barely eat. He was physically falling apart and still showing up to prove himself.

The Body Gives Out, the Mind Does Not

Before the Fusion call-up came through, Ben had one more thing to get through with Richmond. Div 2 provincials in Kamloops. The timing could not have been worse. He was at what was probably the peak of his illness.

Before one of the games, he had to go to the emergency room. They put him on an IV drip and gave him steroids to get him functional. The doctor told him he should not be playing for months. Ben looked at the clock. Kickoff was in about ten minutes.

He pulled out the IV. He got changed in the truck while the game was starting. He ran onto the field still pulling his shirt on, the strap from the IV still wrapped around his arm. The referee went to his coach and asked if the goalkeeper was almost there. The coach told him yeah, he is at the hospital, but he will be here soon.

Ben played the first half. By halftime he was on the verge of passing out. He tried to tell the team manager he could keep going. She texted his mom. The answer came back immediately. Ben was done for the day. They sent him to sit in the air-conditioned truck because it was 35 degrees outside. His team won 2-0 without him.

In the third-place game, it went to a penalty shootout. Ben was back in net. He saved one penalty and dove the correct way on every single kick. He could barely stand. His body was twelve or thirteen pounds lighter than it should have been. His legs were gone. But his mind was not.

They finished third. Ben is pretty sure they could have placed higher if he had been healthy. He is probably right.

Eventually, the call came from Fusion. First to the FPL team, then up to the BCSPL squad. When he arrived, both goalkeepers on the roster were released to make room for him. He was the only keeper on the team.

That was exactly how he wanted it.

The One Condition

When Ben made the decision to leave Richmond, he had one requirement that was not up for negotiation. He had a private goalkeeper coach who had been working with him at Richmond and had recently moved to Surrey to work with the Lions. Ben told his family that the only way he would leave was if he could keep training with that coach.

They made it work. Once a week, they meet at Boyd Park. One keeper, one coach, an hour to an hour and a half. No splitting reps with anyone else. Just work.

The sessions are built around whatever Ben needs. If he has a rough day dealing with crosses, they drill crosses. If his footwork feels off, they spend the session on distribution and first touch. It is the most targeted development he gets anywhere.

Ben is honest about where his game is. His biggest strength is courage. He will sprint off his line at an attacker without hesitation. He will launch himself at a corner kick when other keepers might stay rooted. That part of his game is instinctive.

His footwork is where the gaps are. First touch, scanning, playing out from the back. He knows it and he works on it constantly, both with his private coach and on his own time with friends. It is not about dribbling for a keeper. It is about receiving the ball cleanly, knowing what is around you before it arrives, and moving it on quickly.

He has been getting better over the past year. He will also tell you it needs to be better still.

Every Weekend

The Fusion BCSPL team has not won a game this season. They have not drawn one either. Every match has been a loss.

The context matters. The entire previous SPL squad left the club, spread out across different programs around the province. Every player on the current roster except one was moved up from Division 1. They are learning at the highest level of youth soccer in British Columbia by going through it the hard way.

The one player who stayed. The team is close. Six or seven of them go to the same school. Ben calls them the most connected team in the league.

But connection does not show up on the scoreboard. And for a goalkeeper, the scoreboard is personal.

Ben is open about what the losses do to his head. Back in Division 1, the blowouts wore him down. Losing 6-0, 5-0, 9-0 every week made it hard to stay present. In BCSPL the margins are tighter. Games end 1-0, 2-0. That is close enough to feel like a result is possible, which keeps the belief alive.

Then there are the other games. The ones where the goals start to pile up and the rhythm becomes almost mechanical. They attack, they score. They attack, they score. Again. Again. Again.

He gets angry when a goal is his fault. After one game against TSS, his team conceded twice directly from corners. His teammates brought it up at training for weeks afterward, joking about it. That kind of thing sticks with a goalkeeper.

After one particularly heavy defeat, Thier Coach addressed the group. Ben said they had never seen him that upset. It felt like a step in the opposite direction, and the team knew it. It was a hard moment, and Ben does not try to soften it when he tells the story.

But he resets. That is the job. The next shot is the one that matters. Not the last one.

This is the same kid who pulled an IV out of his arm in Kamloops to make a kickoff. The wiring was already there. BCSPL just tests it every weekend.

What Comes Next

Ben knows where he wants to end up. His main goal is a university scholarship. He is not thinking about professional soccer right now. He is thinking about the next step and letting everything else follow from there.

He is fifteen. There is time.

His older brother, who plays striker at Steveston London Secondary, joined his school team last year specifically so they could play against each other. Different schools, different positions, one family. His brother did not score. Ben saved a few of his shots.

That is where Ben Bradshaw is right now. A goalkeeper who never wanted to be in net, playing at a level he had to fight his way into, losing every weekend, and showing up again the next one. He reads the shooter's body language on penalties. He studies the planting foot, the angle of the run-up, the direction of the knee. He saved more than half his penalties in Division 1. He knows BCSPL strikers are smarter and harder to read. He is adjusting.

The kid who cried when they put him in goal is now the only keeper on a BCSPL roster, training privately once a week, chasing a scholarship, and refusing to let a scoreline define him.

He does not have a win yet. He has something harder to get. He has the ability to come back the next day and believe the next one is his.