Sydney FC goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne admits he came close to retiring from A-League
He’s won two A-League titles in the past three seasons and cracked the national team, but things could have been very different for Sydney FC goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne.
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IT says something about Andrew Redmayne’s headspace three years ago that he was ready to retire at 27 and work as a barista.
Drained of confidence and despairing over his eroding love for a game that kept delivering setbacks, the then Western Sydney goalkeeper and primary school teaching student had a quiet word with his financial advisor.
“It was set in motion,” Redmayne tells The Daily Telegraph.
“It was financially viable just to work in one of my mate’s cafes and do uni during the day and probably just NPL at night.
“I was happy to see out my time at Wanderers … then move back to Melbourne.”
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That was late 2016 and Redmayne, still possessing the raw talent that nearly got him an Arsenal contract as a teenager, was enduring a miserable run of form.
Always a hard worker, he found himself “just going through the motions”.
“I was a bit over it,” he says.
“I mean, I still loved working hard and enjoyed training and the change room.
“But I think a bit of self-belief came into it – I just didn’t think I was good enough to be honest.
“The daily grind did take its toll on me. It was something I almost kind of dreaded it a little … it was a pretty rough stage of my life, but I got through it.”
Until that point, Redmayne was mysteriously maligned by many football fans and seemed destined to play the perennial second fiddle to some of the league’s best ‘keepers at clubs including Central Coast, Brisbane, Melbourne City and the Wanderers.
He has four A-League championship medals. Of the first three, with the Roar (2010-11 and 2011-12) and Sydney (2016-17), he played only one match apiece the entire season.
Social media joked he was the luckiest footballer alive; he would have preferred to be on the pitch.
That Redmayne is now 30 and not only still playing professionally, but has broken into the Socceroos’ World Cup qualifying squad, is largely down to a career-saving mid-season swap deal to replace Vedran Janjetovic at Sydney FC.
That January 2017 move meant a reunion with old Mariners goalkeeping coach John Crawley, the man behind the likes of Mat Ryan and Danny Vukovic.
Still, he told no one at the club just how close he’d come to quitting, confiding only in wife Caitlin and the others involved in his plan.
Over six months Crawley remoulded his game and rebuilt his self-belief, and by the time Vukovic signed with Belgian club Genk in June 2017 he was a different person.
“I don't think I could ever put into words how much he's done for me,” Redmayne says.
“Not only myself as a player on the field, but just life in general.”
Still, the Sky Blues attempted to sign a replacement for their departed A-League goalkeeper of the year, before the pre-season injury struggles of new recruit Alex Cisak eventually elevated Redmayne to No.1.
Last season was easily the best of his career, with nine clean sheets and saving six of the total eight penalties he faced and became affectionately dubbed the ‘Pink Wiggle’ for his, well, wiggly goal-line dances.
To say he was fully involved in his fourth grand-final win would be an understatement given May’s shootout heroics against Perth.
“I was just so lucky that I almost fell back in love with playing football and so much enjoyed my time here,” he says.
“I look back now and think, ‘what if?’, but then it's been a pretty sleek turnaround in two and a half years.
“Before I was fearing making mistakes. I mean, all goalkeepers fear making mistakes, but I feel here I'm able to just play my own game.
“I've almost got like a calm about me. The biggest thing I had last year was I never felt rushed or panicked or nervous or anxious on the pitch.
“There was just that confidence within myself and within the squad that everything was going to be all right.”
Originally published as Sydney FC goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne admits he came close to retiring from A-League