Chairman - John Williams

Things get taken for granted very quickly in football, such that very often, credit doesn’t get dished out when it’s due.

But the fact that the Albion are sitting in eighth place in the Premier League table, 40 points to our name, is one of the more remarkable stories of the season. For this was a season that began with the inevitable turmoil that a change in ownership creates, however well planned, organised and executed it may be. Having been run by Jeremy Peace since the summer of 2002, the hand over of control to Guochuan Lai could easily have disrupted our measured stride given that the policies and principles of the organisation had been set in place for such a long period.

Instead, the transition has been seamless, on and off the field, with the club thriving amid all of the changes. Much of the credit can be laid at the door of Albion’s new Chairman, John Williams, who initially stepped in to work with Peace and help conclude the change in ownership. Now well settled in his new surroundings, John Williams spoke to us about what we have achieved thus far and what we intend to do in the future.

“Naturally, I’m very pleased with the way I’ve been able to settle into the club over the last seven months and that’s no doubt been helped by the background of the results that we’ve achieved. Generally speaking, I’ve found everybody at the club to be very welcoming, it has a very homely feel to it, people here are very professional, and so they have made that transition period very easy for me.

“It was a bit of a whirlwind when I came into the job with not just the ownership change going on but coming in during the summer transfer window too. Clearly the very fact that we have changed ownership, that is a process that you must not underestimate, there are issues surrounding that which have to be dealt with and that takes time and hard work.

“For the football club, it was a change of chairman as well as owner, that brings more adjustments for everyone, but the proof of the pudding is always in results and I think things have settled down quite well. “My impression of all aspects at the club, be it at the training ground, at the stadium, it’s positive. We’ve had to go through a lot of changes in terms of the ownership, the executive, senior management, but I do think that the strength of the club is that everybody pulls together. There’s a good atmosphere here, people working to the same end, and it is a case here that the sum of the parts is greater than any individual”.

One of Albion’s great strengths over these last seven months has been an ability to retain focus and a belief in our values and principles while those beyond The Hawthorns have questioned the club. Certainly, questions were asked about the success or otherwise of the transfer window, but go and find a club who made better pound for pound investments than Matt Phillips, Nacer Chadli and Allan Nyom if you can.