Andy Williams

Andy was born in Dudley in the Black Country in 1962 and was late coming into professional football after serving an apprenticeship at a local firm which gave him accountancy qualifications. He played as an amateur for Dudley Town and was appearing for Solihull Borough in his spare time when Coventry City spotted him in 1985. Don Mackay was the City manager at the time and Andy took two weeks off work to have a trial with the Sky Blues. He appeared in two reserve games and did enough to warrant an offer of a full-time professional contract.

Within a few months he was given his chance in the first team, as a substitute in a 0-3 home defeat to Liverpool, when he came on for Greg Downs in the 73rd minute. City had an injury crisis at the time and Graham Rodger also made his debut and young striker Gareth Evans played only his second game.

Andy went back to the reserves but got another chance in early 1986 with his first start, at home to Aston Villa as a stand-in for the injured Dave Bennett in a 3-3 draw and he set up a goal for Cyrille Regis.

Andy played in a 1-0 win at Oxford and a 2-3 defeat at Newcastle however manager Mackay bought another midfielder Nick Pickering soon afterwards and Andy was unable to win a first team place, other than on the bench. The following season, after one further substitute appearance he was on his way to Rotherham United with Evans in exchange for Dean Emerson.

Rotherham, a struggling Third Division club at the time, were boosted by the arrival of the two youngsters and Williams scored the winning goal against Bolton on his debut, while Evans finished as the club’s leading scorer with 11 goals. Andy played 87 games over two seasons with the Millers before joining Leeds United in 1988. He was never a regular at Elland Road but over four seasons made 50-odd appearances including 15 games in the 1990 Second Division championship team alongside Gordon Strachan, David Batty and Gary Speed.

In 1992 he joined Notts County, then in the First Division, but couldn’t keep them in the top flight. He returned to Rotherham in 1993 but failed to have the same impact at Millmoor as the first time around and moved on to Hull City two years later. He returned to Coventry with the Tigers for a League Cup tie in 1995 but was on the losing side. His last league appearances were for Scarborough in 1996-97.

Andy is based in the Rotherham area and runs the local council rents arrears office, putting the knowledge he gleaned before his playing career to good use.