As The New Saints prepare for their first home game in the League Phase of the UEFA Conference League, the club’s Chief Operating Officer Ian Williams discusses their European success and what it means for both the club and the domestic game in Wales.
“We’ve been striving for years to get to where we are today,” explained Williams to FAW.cymru. “To be fair to our Chairman, Mike Harris, that’s always been his vision. People laughed at him at the time when he said we’re going to get into the group stages, but the Conference League gives clubs of our size, and countries of our size, a real opportunity to play what is now league phase football.
“It certainly raises the profile of not only our club but the domestic game in Wales, which to us is really important because we’re going through a process now in terms of looking at our strategy and what we need to do to improve everything, both on the pitch and off the pitch. Hopefully us qualifying for the league phase this year is going to help with that.”
The New Saints host Kazakhstan outfit Astana at Shrewsbury Town’s Croud Meadow Stadium on Thursday (KO 8pm) in the first of three home UEFA Conference League ties, and Williams is confident of attracting new support from the surrounding area. “First of all, we would have liked to have played the games in Wales, obviously,” he said. “But we had to look at all of the options that were available to us.
“There were challenges around fixture clashes with Cardiff City and Wrexham, so we then turned to Shrewsbury Town, who have been fantastic with us. We managed to get that over the line with UEFA and we’re looking forward to having all of the games 20 minutes away from Park Hall which is great for us, great for the players, but more importantly, great for the supporters. It means that we can encourage a lot of of own supporters to come to the games, but also people from mid Wales, Shropshire and North Wales.”
The New Saints made history by becoming the first club from the Welsh domestic game to qualify for what is now the league phase of a major European competition. A 3-0 aggregate win over Lithuanian side FK Panevėžys in the play-offs sealed their place, with all three goals coming away from home in the first leg courtesy of Danny Davies, Dan Williams and Ben Clark.
“I think when the third goal went in I knew really that we were almost there,” said Williams. “That was quite an emotional moment after all the years of trying to get there. We’ve always said that’s our vision, our goal and where we want to be. That was the moment I thought ‘Yeah, we’ve done it.’ Obviously, we still had the second leg to play at Park Hall, but that great result set everything up nicely for us to go on and qualify.
“It’s been a long journey. Mike [Harris] has been involved for over 25 years and I’ve been here almost 23 years myself. We’ve had lots of good managers, good players and some really memorable occasions. There’s been lots of managers and players over the years that have been part of that process, and even if they weren’t at that game when we qualified, I’m sure they were following the game on the TV, or through social media, certainly.”
With qualification confirmed, a crazy 48 hours followed as Williams and a club entourage went straight to the airport at the final whistle to attend the draw in Monaco the following day.
“To go to the draw and see that for the first time was quite surreal,” he explained. “Being in Monaco itself is an experience and you can smell the wealth of the place. It was a surreal moment to be in a really privileged place.”
TNS’ campaign started earlier this month against Italian giants Fiorentina at the famous Stadio Artemio Franchi. An incredible performance from the JD Cymru Premier champions defied the odds as the scoreline remained 0-0 on the hour mark, forcing the Serie A side to make changes and bring on their star names to eventually win the match 2-0. The club attracted plenty of national press attention before the match, and received even more deserved praise after it.
“To start the competition with an away tie at such an iconic football stadium in world football was quite magical really,” Williams added. “We’ve played the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool, Anderlecht, Midtjylland, Copenhagen etc in the past, but they’ve all been in qualifying matches.”
Manager Craig Harrison was the man who masterminded qualification, and Williams was keen to highlight the importance of his contribution to their domestic and European achievements.
“His record speaks for itself in terms of the success that he’s brought to the club in his two spells,” he explained. “We had the most consecutive win record and took that title away from Ajax, which was an achievement in itself, and we also won lots of league titles and trophies during Craig’s first spell. He’s now returned and that success has continued because that’s the type of person he is. He’s relentless in his attention to detail, his preparation and his will to win.
“That message certainly gets to the players loud and clear. Looking at the game against Fiorentina, you can see that if we had overcomplicated it, we wouldn’t have put in the same level of performance. From a football point of view, because he’s been there and played at the highest level, it’s helped not only him but us as a club to get to where we want to be, and here we are.”
Of course, European success has significant financial rewards for The New Saints, and the club are clear on how this will be invested for both short and long-term benefit.
“The important thing is that you don’t get carried away with that pot of money,” explained Williams. “There’s obviously lots of costs involved, but I think the important thing is that we look strategically as to how that money is invested into everything that the club’s about.
“The focus has to be on the first team because their success on the pitch drives everything. The Academy is important to us because a number of players have come through our system and are in our 25 man squad for both domestic and European matches. Ben Clark being a great example of that. The women’s team is important to us, we’ve upped the level and gone semi-professional this year, and we want them to compete the same way as the men’s side have done for a number of years.
“Then there’s how much of that investment we put in the infrastructure. We want to continue to build the stadium as we have done over the past few years, but also look at our training facilities and build more pitches, so it’s how you balance all of that and at the same time make sure that there’s enough there to sustain things for the next few years. Our aim is to continue to qualify for the league phase, and once you get into that position, it starts to snowball into bigger and better things.”
