Dave Williams and his team Torpedo won the Bristol Downs League Div 1 title in 2008, becoming the first team in the leagues 100+year history to win consecutive Div 2 & Div 1 titles. The seasons before the victories began they had been relegated from Div 1 and recruited a new manger in Dave Williams. Making little change to the personnel he turned the teams fortunes to the better. This booklet tells the tale of how he came to be a legend in the Downs League and their affiliates.

Hi Liam, me too, it’s not often I get to talk about this anymore most people have heard the stories a thousand times.

We were blessed by winning the Bristol Downs League Div 1. We played 26 matches, won 19, drew 4 and lost 3 matches to gain 61 points, 12 points clear of 2nd place Easton Cowboys. This was quite amazing as the majority of the squad who won the title were relegated from the league only 18 months earlier.

Hi Dave, thanks for joining me today after reading your email I’ve been excited to talk to you about thisfor a while.

I would I still telling it if it was my story, don’t worry. Can you please explain what happened during those to years when you won the Div 2 and Div 1 titles?

Yeah, when I arrived as Manager in 2006 the team had just been relegated and had little confidence and we then went on to win the Div 2 title, by 10 points in 2007.

When I came to the Downs League, after playing semi pro football for 20 years, I realised that players in the league were not always the most technically gifted. This combined with smaller narrow pitches meant that you didn’t always have time of the ball. I decided to change a few things that would help us to win the league. I had a five point plan.

And this is when you took over?

So how did you turn it around so quickly?

Get the players fit – changed training to twice weekly instead of once, it gets the players used to each other.

Positive mental attitude – I praised the players and their strengths (never highlighting their weaknesses – and there were many) and made them feel that they could beat anyone who came out on the pitch to play them. I even jokingly said prior to one cup match, “If Liverpool walk out of that changing room now, you will beat them” and this is true, I could see in the players eyes that they believed it!

Can you discribe each point a little bit for more please?

Play a pressing game – which basically meant putting the opposition players under intense pressure, as their lack of technique would mean they would give the ball back to us.

Ensure we got off to a fast start in matches to gain psychological advantage and make it difficult for the opposition to get a foothold in the game.

Winning speaks for itself.

Wow that’s a pretty tall order to turn around staright away it must have been difficult. What were the players like are there any that you would pick out of the bunch, I understand that might be difficult as your all friends and you all won, but who was the star player?

Mike Stubbs our big Scottish striker who moved back to Scotland in December to be with his Mother who had fallen ill. He flew back to Bristol every weekend during the last few months of the season to ensure we won our first title. Now that is commitment, as remember this is amateur football and I’d still have to ask Mike for his £5 subs after the match!!

Captain Gav McKeown was an absolute inspiration and won Player of the Year. Not the most technically gifted of players, but what he lacked in technique he more than made up for in effort, controlled aggression and desire to win. He led from the front and he would have run through a brick wall had I asked him to. He also lived in Swindon and travelled to Bristol twice a week to train and then play on a Saturday.

Jody Cockcroft, our rock solid centre half was awesome at the back and nothing would get past him. He won Player’s Player of the Year.

Dan Jones got the goals with 26 and finished the league’s top scorer

he player that probably gave us the edge over other sides though was the signing of former Gambian International footballer Remi Prierra. I managed to talk Remi into playing for us, perhaps being his boss at work had something to do with it?

He’d played semi-pro football since moving over to England to study and had a trial with Bristol Rovers, but didn’t quite make the grade. However, on the Downs he was a different class. His goal against Bristol Juve was something out of the Champions League. Receiving the ball with his back to goal 30 yards out, he lifted the ball over his on rushing defender before smashing the ball into the far top corner.

I knew at this point we would win the league and even the referee said the same thing to me after the game. He would make football look so easy and enabled us to play great attacking football that was an absolute joy to watch, even on cold winter’s days on the Downs!!

Oh yes. Sneyd Park are our biggest rivals. They were the previous holders of the title and beat us in the first match of the season 3-0, so we got off to a bad start. However we went on to win the next 13 matches and put us in a very strong position. We actually went into the Sneyd pub to allow them to join in our celebrations after winning the title and bought a few shots to start us on our way! They have won the league every year since that title win, but hopefully we now have the edge and the balance of power has turned again.

Does or did your team have any rivals in either of the leagues?

That was quite surreal as we only needed 1 point from our last 3 games as we were so far in front. To be honest I think we were all feeling nervous, as we knew we were so close to creating history and also winning the club’s first ever Div 1 league title. We were playing Cabot who were fighting relegation and although there were some nervy moments we ended up easy 4-0 winners and relegated Cabot I can’t remember my exact words but it was just a case of ...

How was it aproahcing the end? I have experience myself of teams getting so close to the finish line and bottling it at the end how did you keep going?

I can remember just walking back into the changing room after the trophy had been presented to us and breaking down in tears! I was physically shattered as I had put so much effort into the last 2 years and to win the league by 12 points was beyond my wildest dreams and I was so proud of the team.

After that we came out for a team photo and I could hear one or two whispering something so I knew they had something planned. Once the photos were complete they grabbed me and dragged to the pitches where there were some deep puddles and threw me into the muddy puddles. I then dragged myself out and for some reason thought it would be fun to do a ‘Klinsman’ dive into the puddles, which I was followed by the rest of the squad!

After getting changed we all put on our specially commissioned polo shirts with ‘Downs League Winners’ printed on and headed off back to the Port of Call for a great night of celebrations. We were joined by several referees who were very complimentary of our play.

And what did you do when you won?

After winning the trophy it must have been hard to start thinking about doing it all over again?

After winning the league I decided to take some time out to spend with my family as it really had consumed my whole life for two years. I decided to return to management after a year off and we finished Runners-Up to Sneyd Park, with only 3 points in it. We were without a regular keeper for the first 3 months and this proved crucial to us not regaining the title. I have since stepped down from managing teams to concentrate on playing again (at 43), as I’d like to enjoy playing as long as I can.

That’s very admirable, thank you for speaking to me and I wish you the best of luck in the future.