Australia:
Australia’s great wall of defence, Andrew Charter has called time on his international hockey career just seven months after he made history by becoming Australia’s most-capped goalkeeper ever.
Enduring a 13-year career at the highest level, the Canberra-raised keeper accelerated to become the Kookaburras’ most consistent goalkeeper, occupying a sole position on the pitch, as his reliability at the most high-pressure moments in big matches saw him become a triple Olympian at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
In what would become his final outing for Australia, Andrew achieved the highest milestone a goalkeeper has achieved in Australia. His 250th appearance for his country landed on the biggest stage and at one of the most crucial times in his team’s careers, the Olympic quarter-final against the Netherlands.
“I suddenly realised that I don’t think I would be able to hold myself to the same standard over the next year or two that I would expect the young keepers I would be training with to hold themselves to,” He said.
“I knew I couldn’t commit to another four years and to the elite grind but I know that I’m walking away proud of my career.
“As a Kookaburra we always talk about leaving the shirt in a better place and while I think I’ve held on to my shirt for long enough, I definitely feel like I’ve done my bit to continue to grow the brand and Kookaburra as an entity.”
In becoming the 12th most-capped Kookaburra ever, Andrew amassed an Olympic silver medal, a World Cup title, three Commonwealth Games gold medals, two Champions Trophies and two FIH Pro League titles with the side.
It’s an incredible feat for a goalkeeper who at one stage didn’t think he would be able to debut for his nation.
“The start of my career was a challenge,” he concedes. “I was about two weeks away from quitting hockey altogether when I got the call up from the Kookaburras’ head coach at the time, Ric Charlesworth, right at a stage when I was about to give up my dream and enter the Defence Force.”
His debut against Malaysia on May 6 2011 remains one of the proudest moments of his career.
He admits after one of the toughest years of his life, that five-minute call from a legend of the game validated his entire belief in his journey and the support from his family and Hockey ACT, but that resilience set him up for a storied career to remember.
“Goalkeeping takes a lot of persistence and mental grit. Missing out on the London Olympics in 2012 was tough and that stage I had graduated with a University degree and it could have been easy to step away then and chase the money in offshore oil and gas engineering but I knew I wanted to be part of something bigger.
“Persisting led to the 2014 World Cup. It’s always come down to wanting to continue to be part of something truly unique and I wanted to chase that forever, for as long as I could.”
“The highs are the biggest highs in the world, like winning the shootout against Holland to win the World Cup in 2014. But then the lows are backbreaking and it makes you question why we do this. Such as the gold medal match at the Tokyo Olympics and the quarter-final in Paris this year.”
“It’s a journey of the biggest highs and lows, but that’s why we love it and why we get addicted to it.”
