HIGH ACHIEVERS: Award-winning Ray Martel was region’s first club goalkeeping coach

By Martin Cleary

Soccer has been very good to Ottawa’s Ray Martel, but, equally, Ray Martel has been very good for soccer.

Not only did he serve as a youth-level coach with Ottawa Gloucester Hornets Soccer, but also he followed that by becoming the first club goalkeeping coach in the city. After more than 30 years of coaching, Martel, 67, is writing a book dedicated to the glossary of goalkeeping terminology, including photos.

No wonder his resume impressed City of Ottawa protocol officials, who recently named him the 2023 winner of the Brian Kilrea Award for Excellence in Coaching. Martel received his award in a city hall ceremony along with 15 Order of Ottawa members.

But Martel’s soccer journey certainly didn’t start the way it would eventually unfold and develop over the years. He didn’t enjoy his first and only year on a competitive soccer team and didn’t reconnect with the sport until a few years later. And that was just by chance.

As a high school student in Sarnia, ON., Martel decided to try out for the crackerjack boys’ junior soccer team. Auditioning as a five-foot, six-inch goalkeeper, he was surprised to make the team. But it was an experience that saw him never play a game or dress for every game.

When the starting goalkeeper stood six feet, one inch and was quite athletic, he understood why he wasn’t the starting keeper. But overall, the approach by the coach didn’t sit well with him.

“It wasn’t a good experience,” he said in a phone interview on Thursday. “Some of the guys were nice … but it was all about not feeling like I belonged.

“It was ironic. For me, he was a teacher in the day and, in my mind, how could someone who is a teacher not want to do it (properly) as a coach? It drains your confidence. It shook me to my core.”

He liked being on the team, but wondered about how that type of coaching environment would affect people. As a result, he left soccer, returned to minor hockey and started playing volleyball.

But when he attended the University of Ottawa with the goal of becoming a teacher, he would occasionally play intramural soccer. Ron Breen, who would become one of his best friends, asked Martel if he could practise his shooting on him.

When the shooting session was over, Breen was impressed by the self-taught goalkeeping of Martel and told him he should get back into the game. Martel couldn’t see himself attending tryouts for a team, but instead figured coaching would make sense.

As he was channel surfing on his TV one day, he was shocked to see English soccer great Peter Shilton presenting a video on the intricacies of goalkeeping.

“My hands started to sweat,” recalled Martel, who is a freelance translator, editor and writer, after spending 34 years with the University of Ottawa’s central translation bureau. “I went to the library and they had that video and I borrowed it. I also found his book and I took it out 10 times, reading it over and over.”

Soccer was back in his life, but he didn’t hit the sidelines right away.

Once he and his wife started a family, he introduced their children Alex, Olivia and Sabrina to soccer, beginning in 1994. He coached them through their younger years in the Ottawa Gloucester Hornets’ Dragon program for the next 15 years.

As his children grew older and moved onto other interests – Alex, however, still plays soccer and has had his dad as his goalkeeper for the past 15 years – Martel still wanted to stay in soccer and find another role.

“I felt there was a need for formal goalkeeping training,” he said. “It has been lacking and overlooked. I taught myself and I had the materials. What a great way to give back to the sport.

“I like to initiate things and put things forward. Gloucester Hornets had the first goalkeeper coach in Eastern Ontario.”

Martel also had met so many interesting people during his coaching days he didn’t want to abandon the sport and lose that special circle of friends.

He was the Hornets’ full-time volunteer goalkeeping coach for 16 years until he stopped in the spring of 2019. But he still conducts an annual clinic for the Hornets’ younger teams and is scheduled to do sessions next year for West Ottawa and the Ottawa Internationals soccer clubs.

Former University of Ottawa Gee-Gees goalkeeper Tania Singfield introduced private goalkeeping lessons to the Ottawa region in 1997, when she created the Golden Gloves Academy, which is in its 27th year.

Martel remembered how he felt when he was a member of his high school boys’ junior soccer team and he didn’t want any of the players on his teams to feel that way.

“My way was to make the kids feel like a somebody,” he proudly said. “It’s about seeing them show up with a smile and leaving with a bigger smile.”

There are days when Martel misses being on the field, instructing his players and watching them move through a game. But he also realizes there are other adults who also would love to serve as coaches.

“It was time to make room for a new crop of coaches. Sports has evolved so much with the professionalization of coaching and licences. I’ve got certificates, but people are now coming in from universities and semi-pro,” explained Martel, who has an Advanced National Goalkeeping Diploma (2014), an Advanced Goalkeeping Diploma (2009) and Community Coaching Level-3 Certification (1992).

“It’s time to get that next level of expertise. It’s wonderful to see how they progress.”

During his coaching career, Martel also completed a 10-day goalkeeping internship at Sheffield United Football Club in England in 2010 as well as an intensive keeper-coaching course in 2015 directed by Alexandre Vencel, the FIFA director of goalkeeper-coach training.

But Martel still has his foot in the game as he continues to work on writing a book explaining all the terms related to goalkeeping. He also has included photos to accompany his words.

“It started as an informal request from coaches. I’d communicate some tips for their goalkeepers. The next thing I knew I was going down this rabbit hole,” said Martel, who couldn’t find a specific book online about defining all the necessary terms related to goalkeeping.

So, he has taken it upon himself to create a glossary of goalkeeping terms and has 126 to this point.

Martel plans to post his book online in 2024 and interested goalies and coaches can purchase it through subscription for a fee. All monies would go to a benevolent fund to help children who can’t afford to play the game get on the field.

“Goalkeeping is physically demanding, but also challenging intellectually,” he said. “You have to make decisions quickly, expect the unexpected and be ready, be ready, be ready.”