FC Halifax Town: “I’m absolutely loving it” - Williams excited to be taking first steps on coaching ladder

The wide man is combining his playing duties with being lead coach at the club’s centre of excellence at Calderdale College, whose players are pushing to get into the Town academy team.

Williams has been in the role around three months having finally taken the plunge to explore a possible career in coaching.

“I’ve always had a bit of an interest in it. I went to university and did a PE degree so I was kind of going down the route of being a PE teacher but I didn’t end up finishing my PGCE,” he said.

“I did my three years for a degree in PE but didn’t finish it off, and then I ended up going to Inverness to play there so it got put on the back burner because I started playing professionally, so that was my focus.

“But it was while I was up there that I noticed that a lot of the players were doing their UEFA B’s and getting into coaching, who were a little older than me.

“The manager there was always pushing people to do it but I still didn’t feel like it was the right time for me, I felt a little bit too young.

“I only ended up doing my Level 2 last year, but I thought ‘I want to go and do it and see if I like it’.

“It was two weeks of going in now and again doing coaching at Manchester United’s Cliff training ground, and I loved it, absolutely loved it.

“I didn’t know the lads who we were taking, there were 16 of them, under 19s. You just got an hour and they’d set you tasks to do.

“I just thought ‘you know what, when I pass that I want to go for the B’ so I applied for that and got onto it.

“For that you need to be regularly coaching and have a team so you can do your tasks they set, they can come and watch you coach.

“So I applied for the job at the college, who are in association with Halifax, and I’m absolutely loving it at the moment.

“I should also mention how great Stevie Nichol and Gav Atherton from the youth team have been.

“They’ve both been really welcoming and always offering advice.”

Williams added: “It’s not just the coaching, it’s being around the people as well.

“You still have that banter, even though it’s a professional setting because it’s at the college.

“But why not? It’s a good job, being in football no matter what you do.

“It’s something I’m looking at, I’m not saying it’s going to be my career, I don’t know.

“I think I’ve only done 20 sessions so far in my whole life so I can’t say I’m going to be great at it.

“But it’s a different buzz, a different feeling to playing. When you take a session you can see someone’s improving from something you’ve put on, from something you’ve said or something you’ve worked on with the team in training, and then they go and do what you worked on in a game, it’s a really good feeling.”

Williams says the first-team’s schedule fits in nicely around his work with the centre of excellence.

“There’s some good players who aren’t far away,” he said of his young players.

“It’s really hands-on. We train Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays and games are on Wednesdays.

“They train like professional footballers.

“With me having to do my UEFA B session plans, which are nine pages long, it’s hands on.

“Luckily for me, the hours work pretty well with how we train. Games are on Wednesdays, which we’re off.

“We train in the mornings and the youth team lads train in the afternoons, so it works well in that respect.

“But with the UEFA B and all the paperwork, the session plans and everything that comes with it, it’s tough.

“There’s a lot of hours on the computer typing things up, you’ve got to evaluate every session - how did it go, how could you do it better next time.

“That’s good because that’s the real world - I would imagine at the top academies, they’ve probably got to do that for every player.”

Williams says his new role has given him a different perspective on the game.

“As a player you just turn up sometimes, in the past anyway, and you just train. You don’t really think about why you’re doing certain things,” he said.

“What’s surprised me is how hard it is. I have an idea of how I like to play, the way I enjoy playing, and how I want the youth team lads to learn and play, but how do I get that across to them?

“And to each player, who all learn differently? They’re all different people, they’re different physically, socially, emotionally - it’s hard to manage every single person, keep everybody happy and keep them all learning and understanding what you’re saying.

“It’s a really tough job. I don’t know if it’s for me, if I’m going to go onto the next level. I’m still quite young in the coaching world but I’m enjoying it at the moment.

“One thing I have learned is that not every session that you think was good as a player is good for another team.

“There’s things I’ve done in the past that I’ve enjoyed that I’ve thought ‘I enjoyed that, I’ll do that now’ and it doesn’t work.

“It could be ability levels, it could be other factors.

“It’s tough to get the information over. I understand the way I want training to be but it’s getting across to other people that’s tough.
“I still absolutely love playing football, I think any of the lads will tell you, even training. I love it.

“I think we’re all privileged to be playing football as a job.

“But doing this coaching has made me think about things a lot more on the pitch and I think it’s improved me as a player.

“I still feel I’ve got quite a few years left in me, I feel I’m quite young for my age.

“I think every player, young or old, should be having a plan B at our level, I think it’s so important.

“You just look at depression and what happens when some players quit, i don’t know if it’s linked to not having a plan or something they can focus on or go for in the future.

“That’s my idea. I’ve always been in education, I went to college and university and played professionally at an older age. 24 was the first time I played a professional game because I went through education, so I always had that mindset.”

Williams might be comfortable playing in-front of thousands of people, but he admits standing up in-front of youngsters and attempting to teach them takes some getting used to.

“It’s not an easy thing to do. I think the only confidence I had in myself was that I’ve played the game,” he said.

“That doesn’t really matter because it’s a different world, but I feel like I know the basics of what I’m talking about and I could pass on the experience to them.
“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. It’s the same as anything, when you do things for the first time.
“I worked as a cover supervisor in a school and I remember my first time walking into a class, just me and them.

“The night before, I couldn’t sleep thinking ‘I’ve got to take these kids tomorrow’.

“But with football, I know more about what I’m talking about than maths, English or science.

“I had to do an interview (for the job), it wasn’t just given to me because there’s a link to the club, I still had to go through the interview process.”

Now he is experiencing being the student and the teacher, WIlliams says he takes a keener interest in the tactical side of the game.

“Probably more so now because I’m in the coaching world.
“In the past I didn’t, it only really clicked what certain managers were saying when I started coaching.

“For example, when I was up in Inverness we’d do things with wingers coming inside to create overloads, so there was five v two in midfield or whatever it might be.”We’d do five v two’s before we went into it and I used to think ‘why are we doing five v two’s?’ but it was because it might happen in the game.

“We used to do all sorts like that, like seven v four’s because we liked to play out from the back and it helped to bring it out.

“Now I’m doing it I understand why managers did certain things in training, but as a coach and a player, you definitely pick up things you would and wouldn’t want to do.”

“hings you think ‘no, I wouldn’t really do it that way’. Certain things do stick in your mind.”

Does a career in management beckon for Williams?

“Who knows, I’m just enjoying the basics of coaching at the moment. I’m right at the beginning of that pathway.

“I look at managers and it does look like a completely different world.”It’s not just about the coaching and being on the pitch, it’s phone calls, agents, recruitment, it’s everything that’s involved in it. It looks tough.

“I’d never say never, if I felt I was good enough to do it in the future I wold definitely go for it.”

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