Player in Focus: Jay Williams

JAY WILLIAMS

One of Town’s newest recruits is the youngster Jay Williams. Dubbed the ‘next Warren Burrell’ by his manager Simon Weaver, his versatility and attitude put him in good stead for the future...

By Henry Whitaker

DESPITE ONLY BEING 20-YEARS-OLD, Williams has seen and been through a lot in the early days of his footballing career. From living in a one-room flat as a kid to winning youth titles and breaking into the Northampton first team, Jay Williams has had one heck of a journey already.

The first memories of football for Williams are all with his dad, Brian. Whether it be in the park at weekends or while playing for his school team in Northampton, Delapre Dragons; Brian was always there.

Williams grew up only seeing his dad every other weekend after his parents split at a very young age. However, the time with his dad were moments he treasured deeply.

“It was my dad who would take me to all of it,” Williams explains. “It would be him picking me up from my mums, watching me play football and then taking me back home. When you see someone that you don’t get to spend a lot of time with, those moments are amazing. I then got to see him once a week and My dad would be working a 12-hour shift and then still manage to fit the time in for me.”

Williams has a lot to thank his dad for as those trips to and from football at such a young age won him the interest from some big football clubs.

He had trials at Aston Villa who saw huge potential in the Northampton lad. However, Williams was too young to sign and so was instead asked to keep coming back to Villa and wait for the chance to sign when he turned nine-years-old.

At first, that’s what Williams did but the travelling to and from training meant he found himself skipping school and that wasn’t something his mum was willing to allow as she said school had to be the priority.

Luckily for Williams, Coventry City were also wanting the youngster to join their academy and as it was much closer to home, that’s where he signed at the age of nine. He was there for four years but like so many young footballers, he found he just couldn’t enjoy the intensity and schedule of a professional academy.

“I did fall out of love with football at that age as I just wasn’t having fun,” Williams admits. “I was away from my friends, travelling all the time and at 12 years old I didn’t enjoy that.

Williams was released by Coventry and was now living with his dad in what was a one-room flat. However, he was happy being with his dad and although he had left Coventry, he didn’t leave the footballing environment. Instead, he joined Northampton’s academy at the age of 13.

His first three years with The Cobblers went swimmingly but in his final year, he almost threw away the opportunity of a scholarship.

Williams admits he was “in the wrong crowd of people as a teenager” and that it meant he skipped school and that was something Northampton wasn’t going to tolerate.

They brought him in with his dad to chat and with Williams expecting to be offered a scholarship, he got the reality check of his life.

“I went to sit in the office with one of the youth coaches and he just started shouting at me in front of my dad. My dad is someone who wouldn’t let anyone shout at me but he just sat there and looked at me and that’s when it really hit me. I knew I must be doing something really bad,” Williams adds. On the drive home, I felt a way I’ve never felt before in my life. When we got out of the car, I went to my dad and said ‘I’m sorry, from now on I’m going to change.’ I shook his hand for the first time in my life.”

Williams was told by Northampton that he had to turn up to school for two weeks straight or the scholarship wouldn’t happen. He agreed and was later offered a scholarship with The Cobblers.

Looking back on that period, Williams admits he wishes he could have told his former self to “just grow up”.

Nonetheless, with that now firmly behind him, Williams had his focus solely on making it as a professional footballer.

He explains how in his second year as a scholar, it was the “best team he had been involved with”. It was a group of mates playing some great football and winning titles.

Williams was the captain of the team which won the EFL Youth Alliance South East Division title and it led to him and several others moving up to train with the first-team squad under the reign of Justin Edinburgh. However, once Edinburgh left, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink took over and it meant opportunities for the young Cobblers became very slim.

“No one went near the first team, Hasselbaink didn’t know we existed” Williams states. “It was his assistant Dean Austin who loved the youth team. He’d always come over and watch us and I remember him saying to us that we have to keep working hard.”

Hasselbaink was in charge of Northampton from September 2017 to April 2018 before Austin took temporary charge of the club. However, he was unable to stop the Cobblers from being relegated to League Two.

Austin would remain in charge for the start of the 2018/19 season and it meant Williams got his opportunity to stake a claim in the first team. There was a big squad at the start of that season and for the pre-season tour in Spain, some players would miss out.

Williams explains how he found out he’d be one of the scholars to join the squad in Spain.

“There were changing rooms on either side of a long corridor and in one changing room were bags with the names on them with the players that would be on the trip,” he explains. “I still got changed in the youth changing room so didn’t even look at the bags. I’ve gone to leave, walked past the manager’s office and then someone has knocked on the window to get my attention. I went inside and they said ‘where are you going?’. I went back to the bags and mine was at the very end. I remember just smiling.”

As the season began, Austin departed following a poor start to the campaign. Keith Curle came in as his replacement and had a focus on improving first team results which meant once again, the academy lads were pushed to one side.

However, that changed when Curle turned up to watch Williams and his teammates in action in the FA Youth Cup. The Cobblers youth captain impressed and a week later, Williams made his firstteam debut in September 2018 against Wycombe Wanderers in the EFL Trophy.

Williams laughs as he explains the prospect of coming up against Adebayo Akinfenwa was one that left him on edge for the occasion.

Jay Williams playing for Northampton Town

“I was so nervous as I was playing centre back. Luckily, he didn’t play and I did really well. We lost that game but the newspaper highlighted my performance.”

Williams had now established himself as part of Curle’s plans and a month after his senior debut, he made his league debut coming on against Macclesfield Town in the 5-0 away win. Just over 70 minutes had been played before Williams was told to end his warm-up and get ready to enter the fray. However, he wouldn’t be playing in a familiar defensive position.

“The Gaffer called me over and said ‘you can play midfield, can’t you?’ I’ve looked at the dugout and they’re all nodding at me so I’ve gone yeah, yeah, yeah and then got ready to come on. Williams adds, “I think everyone loved my performance as I came on and just smashed everyone. I made two or three hard tackles and the assistant manager was loving it. I ended up playing a lot that season and looking back on it, that was a lot for me as an 18-year-old, it was a big thing for me.” The young lad from Northampton had now played in two first-team competitions with his local team but Williams was yet to sign his first pro deal. Manager Keith Curle had offered Williams a contract in October 2018 but he held off signing following the advice from his agent at the time. January 2019 came around and Williams still hadn’t put pen to paper and that didn’t please Curle. On an away day to Forest Green, all the players are sitting comfortably on the coach before a yell of ‘JAY’ ricochets through the aisle. Curle has called Williams to the front of the coach and it’s crunch time for the youngster. “This raspy voice shouted my name and then I saw the assistant then give me a nod,” Williams explains. “I go to the front and Curle goes ‘Why haven’t you signed the contract?’ I nearly fell into the seat. He told me to get my agent on the phone right now as he had stuck his neck out for me to get the contract and he felt I was taking the mick out of him. I get my agent on the phone and I don’t think there was anything he could say,” he laughs.

Soon after, Williams signed his first professional deal and was part of seven academy players that season to make the grade with Northampton.

Williams carried on the good form with The Cobblers for the rest of the 2018/19 season, making a collection of appearances in midfield.

Northampton went on to finish 15th in League Two that season but before the next campaign could even get started, there was unrest in the camp.

Williams explains how the changing room had turned “toxic” and many first-team players couldn’t get on with the coaching staff, which led to daily shouting matches at the training ground.

Curle overhauled the squad and brought in players who had an abundance of Football League experience. Unfortunately for Williams, it meant he was put onto the periphery and struggled to make it into the matchday squad. The young Cobbler admits that season was a “low point” as he started to “pick up bad habits” and was losing his love for football all over again.

Williams went out on loan to Kettering but it was a drop in standard from playing in the Football League. Then Covid hit and everything stopped. Northampton had been doing well that season and were nicely placed in the playoff spots when the season was paused.

When it was announced that the playoffs would go ahead, Williams was surprised to get the news that Curle had included him in the squad and although he didn’t feature at Wembley for The Cobblers promotion final success, he has that winners medal.

Williams was now thinking maybe he still had a future with Northampton but those hopes were crushed when he sat down with Curle at the end of the season. Williams was told there would be no contract on the table and that “in the next two years he would either be in the Championship or knocking around at non-league clubs”.

The news had capped off a pretty rough year for a lad who was yet to turn 20-years-old. It was all becoming too much for Williams and what he really needed was someone to take him and get him back on track.

He needed his dad.

Williams moved back in with his father and started to get in the mind-set to reignite his career.

“When I moved back with my dad, things started getting better. I was training the hardest I’d ever trained and everything has been up since. My mindset has been different, I feel so much clearer and I have no distractions. I didn’t have a club for a while though and that was really hard as it was getting close to me going out and getting a real job. It was a period where I realised so much more about myself but I was living off my dad.”

Williams ended up at Kettering in November 2020 which caught the attention of Simon Weaver after their manager got in contact with the Town Gaffer. Weaver invited Williams in for a trial but after a couple of sessions, he got a concussion and couldn’t train for two weeks.

When he did come back, he possessed the skills and attitude Weaver looks for in a footballer but Williams reveals that the Gaffer told him he was definitely a “curveball” and didn’t expect him to turn his head.

Williams signed in January and made his Harrogate debut against Cambridge in the same month. The Town man then went on to score his first goal in men’s football against Forest Green earlier this month.

Although enjoying those moments, Williams focus is on the next game and playing games.

“That debut made me feel like I now have to work harder, I can’t fall off it again,” he says. “I know where I was and I don’t want to go back. It’s that you can’t work harder than me mentality. I’m just going to keep working hard and see where it takes me.”