Meet the guitar hero hoping Maidstone hit right chord
An afternoon in the company of Bill Williams is almost over and he is posing for photographs when he displays his fingernails and reveals he is an accomplished guitarist and once jammed with Freddie and the Dreamers.
That was when he was running the Butlin’s at Barry Island after the consortium he was part of had failed to buy Cardiff City. All of which seems a long way from Maidstone United’s trip to Ipswich Town in the FA Cup but that is how he rolls.
Williams is synonymous with Maidstone and their turbulent history. He joined the club as a player from Gillingham in 1971, returned as manager a decade later before moving upstairs as an associate director as they reached the Football League in 1989 and crashed out of business three years later.
He has been integral to the club’s resurrection in various roles. At 81, he is without portfolio, although still intrinsic and busy chasing a new signing to help Stones manager George Elokobi when Mail Sport descends.
He also happens to be one of football’s great raconteurs, and so his reflections on a life entwined with Maidstone ahead of today’s FA Cup tie at Portman Road are peppered with random tales from further afield.
Some connected to his playing career, which began at Portsmouth. He later joined West Bromwich Albion from Queen’s Park Rangers on the day Jeff Astle arrived at the Hawthorns from notts County in 1964. ‘Jeff hit the big time and I had two years in the reserves,’ says Williams, one of 150 former players participating in the University of nottingham’s research into links between brain injuries and heading the ball after Astle’s premature death.
‘Jeff would run around singing when he was playing. She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain When She Comes, and things like that. The manager, Jimmy Hagan, an awful man, used to fine him all the time but he wouldn’t stop.’
Other tales emerge from his coaching career and feature Pele and Franz Beckenbauer, who played together for new York Cosmos against his team Atlanta Chiefs. ‘I can still recall the feeling of excitement I had when they walked past me,’ says Williams. ‘ They had such huge upper legs. That’s what I’ve always remembered.’
While coaching in South Africa, he discovered Bruce Grobbelaar playing in Zimbabwe. ‘ The first ball into the penalty box, he jumped and headed it clear,’ he says with a laugh. ‘Then he saved a shot, clambered on to the crossbar and hung upside down by his legs clapping.’
Finding players has always been at the heart of it for Williams. He sold Warren Barton to Wimbledon and Chris Smalling to Fulham and he lured former England winger Peter Taylor into a player- coach role at Maidstone.
Williams led Durban City to titles in the 70s when South Africa’s authorities were trying to end the segregated leagues of apartheid rule. His was the first white team to sign a black player and Kaizer Chiefs signed the first white player, and the teams met in a friendly in Soweto. ‘ A good occasion but intimidating,’ he says. ‘ nothing like Gillingham v Maidstone.’
Adventure extends to his business escapades, too, although all his roads have led him back to the same corner of Kent. ‘I wanted to be Sir Alex Ferguson,’ says Williams. ‘I set out to be the top manager in this country. I didn’t achieve it but I was a good manager. I tried to be a millionaire as well and that didn’t work, either. But as long as you try. I’ll go to my deathbed and say, “Well, I tried the best I could”.’
Williams did achieve one ambition: to manage in the Football League, albeit for just four games when Maidstone were sliding out of business.
They lost the first game and were losing their second when he figured the players were not listening to him so he gave them 15 minutes to get changed and board the team bus after the
match and when they missed the deadline he left without them.
Maidstone and problems went hand in hand for years. As they tried to get into the Football League in the 80s they sold their historic ground, fearing it would not meet requirements, then frittered away almost £3million on upgrading the stadium at Dartford, where they ended up ground- sharing after winning promotion to the Football League in 1989, and investigating potential sites.
They bought a plot for £400,000, failed to get planning permission and went bust. They reformed, initially as Maidstone Invicta in the Kent League, the 14th tier of English football, and started the slow climb but the club did not return to its community until they built the Gallagher Stadium by the River Medway in 2012.
‘Over the years, it’s been about keeping myself alive,’ says Williams, who has fought skin cancer for years and various other life-threatening ailments. ‘ And being there for the football club.
‘We’ve been at the bottom of football and up through the leagues to the wonderful day when Oliver Ash and Terry Casey came in, bought it and started building the new stadium.
‘People don’t understand the magnitude of bankruptcy and 25 years out of the town. It’s been down to hundreds of people. I’m one of them but Oliver and Terry have been the salvation of this club. They’re wonderful owners.’
It explains the euphoric scenes when they beat Stevenage in the third round. After everything they have been through, this FA Cup run feels sweeter than those in the 80s, when Maidstone played at Sheffield United and Watford.
A windfall of around £350,000 will sustain the future, with more than half set aside for replacing the 3G pitch and more for a new toilet block and gantry for TV cameras. Maybe even a new player for Elokobi’s team.