Paul Anthony Williams (born 16 August 1965) is an English football coach and former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a striker. As a player he made 300 appearances in the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

for

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building ...

as well as in

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

for

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in C ...

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...

Sheffield Wednesday Sheffield Wednesday Football Club is a professional association football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The team competes in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Formed in 1867 as an offshoot of ...

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

Torquay United Torquay United Football Club is a professional football club based in Torquay, Devon, England. The team currently compete in the , the fifth tier of English football. They have played their home matches at Plainmoor since 1921 and are nicknamed ...

and

Southend United Southend United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. As of the 2022–23 season, the team competes in the National League, the fifth tier of English football. Southend are known as ...

. He retired in 2000 whilst with Non-league side

Canvey Island Canvey Island is a town, civil parishes in England, civil parish and reclaimed island in the Thames estuary, near Southend-on-Sea, in the Castle Point district, in the county of Essex, England. It has an area of and a population of 38,170.Office ...

. He was

capped In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the ea ...

by England at under-21 and B international level. Since retiring from playing Williams returned to former clubs Charlton Athletic and Crystal Palace where he was an academy coach before emigrating to the United States where he coaches youth soccer.

Playing career

Born in Stratford, East London, Williams was signed by First Division

from non-league Woodford Town in 1987. Where he was top goal scorer for two successive seasons. This prompted Ron Atkinson to spend nearly a million pounds to bring the Londoner to

in 1990, where he enjoyed a productive partnership with David Hirst. That season he won a League Cup medal at

Wembley Stadium Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...

when Wednesday defeated

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

1–0. In the same season, Wednesday achieved promotion back to the First Division. Williams moved back to London with

in 1992, in a swap deal involving

Mark Bright Mark Abraham Bright (born 6 June 1962) is an English sports correspondent and former footballer. Born to a Gambian father and English mother, he was adopted into a foster family in Stoke-on-Trent at an early age. He played non-league football ...

. In season 1993–94 he won a

Football League First Division The Football League First Division was a division of the Football League in England from 1888 until 2004. It was the top division in the English football league system from the season 1888–89 until 1991–92, a century in which the First ...

(second tier) winners medal with Crystal Palace and was second top goal scorer behind Chris Armstrong. After loans with

and

he returned to

, followed by a few months at

before ending his league career with

in 1998, due to injuries. From there, Williams went on to complete two very successful years playing and coaching at

. While there, the club gained consecutive promotions and won two league Cups. Ending his semi-pro playing and coaching career at Bowers FC in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

in 2002.

Coaching career

Williams continued coaching at the Charlton and Crystal Palace youth academies, before moving to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

in 2012 where he is currently the Director of Coaching for the Florida Fire Juniors who are affiliated with the

MLS Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

team Chicago Fire.

Honours

; Sheffield Wednesday *

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

winner 1991 * 1st Division Runners-up 1991 ; Crystal Palace * * 1st Division Champions Medal 1993

References

General * Specific

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Paul 1965 births Living people Footballers from Greater London English footballers England men's under-21 international footballers England men's B international footballers Men's association football forwards Aveley F.C. players Clapton F.C. players Woodford Town F.C. (1937) players Charlton Athletic F.C. players Brentford F.C. players Sheffield Wednesday F.C. players Crystal Palace F.C. players Sunderland A.F.C. players Birmingham City F.C. players Torquay United F.C. players Southend United F.C. players Canvey Island F.C. players Premier League players English Football League players