'Danny Cowley said he'd made a mistake. I was heartbroken': Ex-Pompey man Ryan Williams on painful Fratton Park exit
The Australian winger featured 91 times for Pompey and scored eight goals over two spells
Danny Cowley was the last person Ryan Williams expected to call, likewise the timing was clumsily inappropriate.
Pompey’s head coach had overseen the painful severance of the Australian’s Fratton Park stay upon the expiry of his contract in the summer of 2021.
Having returned to the south coast for a second Blues spell, the hard-working winger was left reeling when offered fresh terms on ‘substantially less’ money off the back of a 49-game season.
Unable to accept and unconvinced that Cowley regarded him with any worth, the heartbroken 27-year-old followed Craig MacGillivray, Tom Naylor, Jack Whatmough, Ben Close and Andy Cannon through the door.
Thankfully, subsequent interest from Oxford United delivered the opportunity for Williams to remain in League One, while a two-year deal and the commutable distance from his Knowle home provided precious security for his young family.
The move was sealed in June 2021, yet, hours after his official Kassam Stadium unveiling, the attacker received a bombshell phone call from a repentant Cowley.
‘I didn’t want to leave Pompey, I was desperate to stay. Then, the day I signed for Oxford, Danny Cowley called and said “I regret not re-signing you”,’ Williams told The News.
‘At the time of my Pompey release, I was angry, I was really angry and really upset. I didn't want to go. It’s not that I felt hard done by, not at all, it’s just that when you have a plan in your head and it doesn’t go the way you want, it’s always hard to take.
‘I was angry at everything’
‘They had offered a contract, but it was for quite a lot less. At that point in my career, I was going to push forward and not take a step backwards financially. So it was difficult to take, especially as I thought I had done quite well in the second season and enjoyed myself.
‘I never knew the final game of our season against Accrington would also be my last game for Pompey. I thought I would be staying, despite no real talks. My agent had told me to prepare myself a little for what could be coming. When we did have the conversation, the deal was for substantially less.
‘I was quite heartbroken to be honest, I loved where I lived in Knowle, loved the club, loved everything about it. I was super happy there, but unfortunately the manager wanted to go in a different direction.
‘I was angry at everything and possibly even myself. Maybe if I had scored a few more goals I’d have got what I wanted and the club would be happier to keep me. It wasn’t exactly one person I was upset with. It left a sore spot, to be honest.
‘Now Oxford were interested, I could commute from home, so I decided to go there. Then, on the same day I signed, Danny rang and told me he’d made a mistake.
‘A few hours earlier, it was a case of these are our terms, sign if you want. Then I’ve gone somewhere else and he says he regrets it. Perhaps he was too nice and wanted to keep people happy? I don’t know.
‘My head was in the bin, what’s going on? I was happy to sign - and now this. I didn’t want to do media at the time of leaving Pompey, I didn’t want to say anything emotional, so I completely binned it. The News, Radio Solent, I just scrunched it up into a ball, threw it in a bin and left it at that. I didn’t want to tarnish anything.
‘I didn’t want to dwell on the past, I had to focus on Oxford now. If it really was a mistake by Danny Cowley, it was too late now.’
Sold to Fulham to try to prevent Pompey administration
Williams’ Fratton Park association had begun 11 years earlier, when, as a bright young talent from Perth, Australia, he arrived in England seeking to earn a professional contract.
Following trials with Sunderland, Aston Villa, Sheffield United, Middlesbrough and a then-Premier League Pompey, it was the Blues he opted to join in July 2010 on a one-year scholarship which also consisted of pro terms.
Handed digs in Copnor Road, he joined an Australian youth contingent which included Andy Higgins, Alex Grant, Patrick Antelmi and Jordan Fitzharris. However, the winger was the first to make the first-team breakthrough.
Having been a surprise inclusion on the pre-season tour to South Carolina, in America, Williams was handed a debut off the bench in the opening game of the 2011-12 Championship season at Middlesbrough.
Aged 17 years, nine months and 10 days, he went on to make six appearances, all as a substitute, before being sold by cash-strapped Pompey to Fulham on deadline day in January 2012. Regardless, the Blues entered administration the following month.
He added: ‘I had been at Pompey on trial and sometimes you get a good feeling about the place. Besides, it was close to water, so kind of similar to home. Kind of!
‘There were five of us from Australia, all brought over by the football agent Gary Williams, which made settling in much easier. Every day after the training, we would all go to Gunwharf, eat at Nando’s and go to the movies, it felt like home. Me and Andy (Higgins) had even gone to school together in Perth and played for the same team since eight.
‘Then, with Pompey’s financial situation and not having a reserve team, they had to dip into the under-18s. For me, it was the best thing ever, Steve Cotterill loved me. He saw a cheeky, hard-working young kid, while the first-team boys looked after me. Great memories.
‘Me and Lewis Stockford were taken on the pre-season tour to America and I remember Kanu handing me an ice-cream. I took a big bite out of it and it was butter! I could see his shoulders going up and down, everybody was laughing.
‘One night out, Hermann Hreidarsson was doing pull-ups on an air-conditioning fan in a bar and accidentally broke half his tooth. So he popped it into mouth, swallowed it like a pill and shouted “Skol”.
‘Another time, Liam Lawrence had taken Tal Ben Haim’s car from the training ground. His car keys were lying right next to me - and he thought I was responsible. So he slapped me in the face.
‘Lenny (Lawrence) stood up and told him off: “What are you doing? You can’t hit a kid. It was me, hit me”. Tal just walked away with the keys and didn’t say anything, although apologised in the end. He didn’t really care whether you liked him or hated him.
‘Realistically, I should never have got a chance at 17 to play in the first-team and go on an away trip, especially after six months in the youth-team. What a start, that was awesome. It was really special.
‘Looking back, I would have loved to have stayed at Pompey longer in that first spell. However, my agent at the time did what agents do, they look for the most money - and the financial situation at the club wasn’t ideal.
‘I had another 18 months left and Pompey offered me a four or five year contract. My agent looked at the money increase and I was pretty much signing the same deal for five years. I could see where he was coming from, even though I wasn’t really bothered by money at 17, I just wanted to play.
‘So between October and December 2011, Michael Appleton froze me out of the first-team as I wasn’t signing that new deal. As a 17-year-old kid, it’s difficult to stand up to any adult at that time and say “No, I’m going to sign this contract. I want to sign it”. I probably could have been guided a bit better.
‘Then, in the January transfer window, Fulham came in for me - but they wanted to see me in a trial game first, which was weird. I played against Wolves, did really well, and the next day was a Fulham player in the Premier League.
‘The most embarrassing thing was driving into the ground and my agent telling me we were stopping for the Sky Sports cameras, who were at the side of the road. Then he wound down the window for me to talk to them!’
Back at Fratton Park seven years later
It wouldn’t be for another two-and-a-half years until Williams was handed the first of his two Fulham appearances, featuring for the last five minutes of a Championship clash with Wolves in August 2014.
By that stage there had been loan spells at Gillingham and Oxford United, while a subsequent loan at Barnsley was turned into a permanent arrangement in July 2015 for an undisclosed fee.
A switch to Rotherham would then see Williams win promotion to the Championship through the League One play-offs in May 2018 after beating Shrewsbury at Wembley.
He said: ‘As soon as I knew Pompey were interested, that was it for me, I had such fond memories of the city,’ he said. ‘Not only was it the first place I lived outside Australia, but I had grown up there in my late teams. It was special.
‘I was so looking forward to playing at Fratton in front of those fans again - then eight months into my first season Covid happened. If we’d have had our supporters behind us, we would have 100 per cent gone up that season. Instead we lost in the play-off semi-finals at Oxford with nobody there.
‘Kenny Jackett was a very different manager to what I had experienced before, but what I loved most about him was how level headed he was. For 85-90 per cent of the time, he was emotionally in control, never too high or too low.
‘You only spoke to him when he spoke to you, the conversation was never really too long, but I enjoyed working with him. That calmness he showed is so important in all leadership and management roles, even being a dad.
‘It was a shame when he was sacked the day after we lost to Salford in the Checkatrade Trophy final at Wembley (March 2021), with still no fans there. There was absolutely no point in even playing it at Wembley without them.
‘Then the Cowleys came in. With them having previously been at Lincoln, I was expecting it to be a bit more route one at Pompey. It couldn’t have been further from that, it was total football.
‘On numerous occasions we’d speak about Marcelo Bielsa, we had the iPad out on the training pitch, he would tell players they hadn't drunk enough water because he could see it in their faces, strange things like that.
‘I liked them as people, although I didn’t play my best football under them. We played with a lot of freedom under Kenny and Joe - only to go to the other end of the spectrum. That was pretty difficult, especially in a period where we really needed to do well and pick up results.
‘Kenny would tell us 50 per cent of what we needed to do - and the other 50 per cent was down to ourselves. Whereas Danny told you 100 per cent of what you must do.
‘Maybe if he had done that at the start of a pre-season and cracked on throughout it might have been a better option. To me it was micromanaging, too intense.
‘We’d have a 20-minute meeting before every training session involving him explaining what that day’s session would be about. Then, after every exercise and drill, we would huddle around the iPad. Maybe they were the right ideas, it was probably the wrong time.
‘I’ve never experienced that approach before. Footballers have a short attention span, you’d lose them after 10 minutes in a 20-minute meeting, everybody knows that. Keep it to five minutes, look at what we are doing, no problem, see you out there. Perfect. But it wasn’t like that.
‘Reading between the lines, they were trying to disconnect themselves from that long ball image, which is why they were trying so hard to play this possession-based, expansive, play out-from-the-back football.’
Loving life in India
Following his departure in June 2021 after 91 games and eight goals, Williams joined Oxford on a two-year deal - yet, just 12 months later, had returned to former club Perth Glory for an undisclosed fee.
The winger featured 24 times as Perth finished ninth in the A-League, before moving to Indian Super League side Bengaluru in July 2023.
Now aged 31, he has scored 10 goals in 40 appearances during his two years so far, establishing himself as a firm favourite with supporters.
Having finished fourth this season, they qualified for the Indian Super League Cup, progressing to the final where they lost 2-1 to Mohun Bagan SG in April.
Williams added: ‘I was going to play in Korea, there was a team interested, but I pulled out. Then this came along and I thought: “Why not?”.
‘I knew players in Australia who had absolutely loved playing in India and I was keen to try something new again. My mum was actually born in Mumbai and was an Indian citizen for 14 years, while both my maternal grandparents were also born in the country.
‘The standard of the game in India took some getting used to, to be honest. The level of the foreign players in their game is good and the level of good Indian players is good. However, the main difference is that the ability of the average Indian player is a lot less than usual.
‘I’ve found Bengaluru so peaceful, the people are friendly, and it’s probably the happiest me and the family have been in a long time. It’s a great place.’
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