Soccer coaches don’t make great teams, it has been reasoned in some quarters. They destroy them.
Jimmy Williams, who died on Friday at the age of 79 after several years of deteriorating health, was dedicated to not destroying anything while coaching Highlands Park in the 1960s.
In the process, he adhered steadfastly to the Brooklyn-esque dictum ”if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” and presided over what many still believe to be the finest club soccer team assembled in South Africa.
He had under his wing a maze of highly and diversely talented cosmopolitan players who hailed from Brazil, Scotland, the United Kingdom, Rhodesia, Portugal and South Africa and was smart enough to appreciate the exciting blend of talent.
So, within the standard, professional codes of discipline and fitness required in such situations, the likeable, affable and industrious Doncaster-born coach let the players get on with the job of scoring goals in abundance.
This they achieved with almost monotonous but majestic regularity through ace Brazilian finisher Walter da Silva and the awesome physical prowess of one Freddie Kalk, who hailed from the southern suburbs of Johannesburg and has since emigrated to Canada.
Aiding and abetting them were such polished performers as Brazilian midfield dynamo Jorge Santoro; Scottish Premier League wings Willie McIntosh and the late Bobby Hume; the inscrutable Charlie Gough and firebrand Joe Frickleton in midfield; and the cagey former Benfica maestro Vasco Pegado.
The defensive ”wall” consisted of the never-say-die Malcolm Rufus, Stan Jacobitz and John Stewart, with Durban-born George Ryder in goal.
In one game in the old National Football League, Highlands led Bloemfontein City 4-0 after nine minutes — and eased off to win 9-0 in a canter.
Highlands Park was Jimmy Williams’s legacy — and a glorious one at that.
But it was by no means the only string to his bow. He was the coach of the South African White team that played against the South African Black, Coloured and Indian XIs in what was deemed a breakthrough from rigid apartheid.
He was Fasa’s national director of coaching and headed the old Southern Transvaal Football Association’s coaching structure. For a while, he coached the Port Elizabeth City professional team.
He played soccer for Doncaster in the lower English divisions and was a bowler of no mean ability at Balfour Park and, afterwards, the Wanderers. At the age of 75, he was still circling one of the Wanderers cricket stadiums in order to keep fit.
More than anything, however, he was a gentleman at all times and in every situation — and no one had a bad word to say about this consummately respected and unassuming gentleman.
His funeral takes place at the Braamfontein crematorium at 2pm on Tuesday. — Sapa