MJ

Jordan Williams casts his mind back to the “dark place” he used to inhabit.

After the thrill of making his Liverpool debut and being called up to the senior Wales squad, there was the crushing low of a debilitating injury in his left knee.

At the age of 22, he was facing the grim prospect of having to retire. Everything the Bangor-born midfielder had worked so hard to achieve was slipping from his grasp. He would drink to numb the pain and then hide away from the outside world in his Liverpool city centre apartment.

“I was scared,” he tells The Athletic.

“When retirement first got mentioned and Alex Inglethorpe (Liverpool academy director) asked if I’d thought about another job or going to uni, I told him: ‘I’ve got nothing’. I was never the cleverest of lads in terms of getting GCSEs. I’d only ever wanted to be a footballer.

“Alex said to me: ‘You’ll have a family of your own one day and you need to be able to walk’. At the time I was thinking: ‘Why are you saying that to me?’. Looking back now, I know he was only looking out for me.

“Back then, I was going out in town constantly. It was a release. Then I’d go home, close the curtains and sleep all day. I didn’t want to be around anyone. I didn’t want to be around the training ground. I’d lost all my motivation. I was very close to calling it a day. I thought I was finished with football.”

Three and a half years on from his lowest ebb, Williams found himself in the back of a police van late on Saturday night. He couldn’t have been happier.

He had just helped Bolton Wanderers clinch automatic promotion from League Two. An emphatic 4-1 win at Crawley on the final day sparked wild celebrations.

“The past few days have been mad,” he smiles. “There was a lot of singing and a lot of beer drunk on the five-and-a-half-hour coach journey back. Then we had a little party in Manchester on Sunday.

“When we got back to the ground about midnight on Saturday there must have been about a thousand Bolton fans there. The police wouldn’t let us off the coach because of safety concerns. They took us 10 minutes down the road and we had to get off the coach and into the back of these matrix vans. The first one I’ve ever been in! The fans didn’t know we were in them so we got into the ground that way and then we could run out the front to share the moment with them. It’s the best feeling I’ve had in football for a very long time. Probably since I made my debut for Liverpool.”

Williams made 21 consecutive league starts for Ian Evatt’s side after signing from Blackpool at the end of the January window. He was instrumental in Bolton’s remarkable rise from 19th to third place during the second half of the season and, crucially, he’s been playing pain-free.

He owes a debt of gratitude to Liverpool Football Club and to renowned American orthopaedic surgeon Dr Riley J Williams for saving his career.

Shortly before Christmas in 2017, he flew to New York to undergo a cartilage transplant. Even though Williams only had six months remaining on his contract and was set to be released the following summer, Liverpool met the £150,000 costs of the groundbreaking and complex procedure.

“I was the first footballer from England to have it done,” he says. “Riley had done it for a few football players in the States but it was more basketball players he had operated on.

“Liverpool club doctor Andy Massey had first mentioned it as a possible option but a lot of people were wary about it at the start. I’d never even heard of a cartilage transplant.

“I’d been operated on previously by Andy Williams in London and when I went to see him after breaking down again on loan at Rochdale, he said the chondral defect in my knee was the worst he’d seen. It was just bone on bone.

“He had given me three options. One, more injections and then strengthening my knee. Two, an operation with an 18-month recovery and a 50-50 chance of success. Three, retire.

“I couldn’t do the injections any more. I’d be OK for a couple of weeks and then it would come back. I was in too much pain. It was no life for me. I used to sleep with the Game Ready (ice strap) on my knee. It was always on my mind. Some days I just couldn’t face going in.

“I talked things through with Andy Renshaw (Liverpool physio), my mum and my agent and decided to go for the option in New York rather than retire. I didn’t want to be sitting down in years to come thinking about what could have been. Thankfully, it paid off. The riskiest decision also turned out to be the best decision of my life. Riley said that he would have me back playing in six months and I’d have no problems with the knee going forward. That was music to my ears and he was spot on.”

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Williams up against Mario Balotelli in training in 2014 (Photo: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
After an initial consultation in Manhattan, Williams returned to Merseyside and waited for the call to arrive. The American donor had to be of similar age and stature.

“About a week later, Riley called to say they had a match and I had nine days to get over there. A young lad, around my age, had died in a car crash,” he says.

“It was a strange feeling knowing that the operation was only happening because of a tragic accident. I wasn’t allowed to know the guy’s name but I wrote a letter which they passed on to his family to thank them for what they had done for me.

“I couldn’t tell them my full name or who I played for, but I was able to say that I was a professional athlete and that thanks to their son, my life was being transformed. I’ll be grateful forever.

“Two days after the op, they had me on the physio bed, bending my leg right the way up to my bum. Previously, I couldn’t do that as my knee would just block it. I was all tense, thinking it would hurt, but there was no pain. I’ve basically got a brand new knee. I owe them everything for the way they looked after me.

“I don’t know where I would be right now without that cartilage. The knee is amazing and, touch wood, I’ve had no problems at all. The happiness I get from playing football is immeasurable. It’s all I’ve done since I was a kid. Being around the lads, the banter, without that, I’d be lost in my life.

“I can’t thank Liverpool enough because without their help and support I wouldn’t be here now. Physio Paul Kelly came with me to New York and he was great. I was so lucky that Liverpool paid for everything. If I’d been playing in League One or League Two then, it would have been just too expensive to have done.”

Williams was 13 when he signed for Liverpool from Wrexham. He had also received offers from Manchester City and Everton. He rose through the ranks at Kirkby and graduated to Melwood under Brendan Rodgers.

In September 2014, he made his first-team debut at the age of 18 when he came off the bench against Middlesbrough in a League Cup tie at Anfield. He scored Liverpool’s sixth penalty in a memorable 14-13 victory in the shootout.

“My shirt from that night is in a frame at my mum’s house. I gave it to her because she took me all around the country as a kid. I’ve always been so lucky to have her support,” he says.

“I still look back on the footage from that night. My girlfriend’s lad is into football and he can’t believe I’m on YouTube. Scoring that penalty was the best moment of my life. Stepping up to take it, hearing the roar of the Kop when the ball hit the net. What I’d do to go back to that day and take that penalty again. Looking back, I still get goosebumps. The best feeling in the world.

“Some of the senior players were hiding a bit when it came to putting hands up for the penalties and didn’t want to be responsible for sending us out of the cup. My attitude was ‘what have I got to lose?’. As a young lad, you need to get your name out there. I remember Mario Balotelli coming up to me after, putting his arm around me and saying: ‘I’ve got so much respect for you!’.”

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Williams playing for Liverpool under-21s at Anfield in 2014 (Photo: Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
The pursuit of regular game time saw him head out on loan to first Notts County and then Swindon Town. His eye-catching performances in League One earned him a maiden Wales call-up from Chris Coleman in August 2015. His initiation involved singing R Kelly’s The World’s Greatest to his team-mates.

“Moving around clubs, I’ve done a few of them now, but Wales was the hardest one because I had Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey staring at me,” he says. “I was shaking and all the boys were laughing at me. It’s the hardest thing in football. I dread it every time it comes.

“Chris Coleman had been coming to watch me play for Swindon and was very complimentary. It was the Euros at the end of that season so I was on course to be part of that. I still had hopes of going back and making it at Liverpool. I was right up there one minute and then right down there the next…”

Shortly after returning from international duty, Williams was hurt playing for Swindon against Colchester United and a subsequent scan showed he needed surgery on his meniscus. It kept him sidelined for a year.

The only headlines he made were unwanted. In March 2016, as he continued his rehab, he found himself in the middle of a social media storm.

He had been in the triumphant away end at Old Trafford when Liverpool knocked Manchester United out of the Europa League. Responding to a friend’s video of the Liverpool fans celebrating, Williams tweeted two emojis — clapping hands and an aeroplane.

There was an angry backlash from United supporters who accused him of mocking the Munich air disaster. Williams has always insisted that wasn’t the case but he regrets falsely claiming that his Twitter account had been hacked.

“In Liverpool, when you’re doing well, we say you’re ‘flying’,” he explains.

“That’s what I meant. I didn’t think about it too much. I just thought we’ve won, we’re flying, we’re into the next round. It certainly didn’t occur to me that anyone would possibly think I was referring to Munich. I would never, ever have done that.

“I just remember being halfway home, looking at my phone, and seeing all these notifications coming through. One was from Empire of the Kop, a big Twitter account, saying, ‘You need to delete this now’. I just thought, ‘What’s going on here?’.

“Then a mate rang me saying, ‘You’re all over the news’. I was like, ‘For what?’. He explained that it was the aeroplane emoji, ‘They think you were talking about Munich’. I was horrified. The Mail had already done a story online.

“I remember ringing Phil Roscoe (player care manager) at the academy and asking for his help. I panicked late that night and asked my friend to send a tweet from my phone saying my account had been hacked.

“It was the worst thing I did. I should have just made it clear what I meant, that Liverpool were flying. Because I’d made up about my account being hacked, people didn’t believe me when I explained what the initial tweet actually meant. They thought I was lying about that too.

“I was scared of Alex (Inglethorpe) at the time. He rang me and I said, ‘Alex, I’ve been hacked’. He was like, ‘Jordan, tell me the truth’. When they looked into it they could tell the tweets had only come from one device, my phone.

“All these people online were calling for me to be sacked. I was feeling down anyway with the injury. Thankfully, Phil, Alex and everyone at Liverpool believed me and stuck by me. It was a tough time. I’ve been through a few of them.”

Another comeback resulted in another loan to Rochdale in August 2017 but by the end of October, he was in so much discomfort that he had to admit defeat.

“In the warm-up at Plymouth, my leg was so weak I could barely move,” he says.

“I was taking so many anti-inflammatories and painkillers. My mum always used to say to me as a kid ‘you don’t come off that pitch unless you can’t walk’. I still don’t know how I got through that game but I knew I couldn’t go on like that. I went back to Liverpool.

“I was living by myself in an apartment in town. I don’t look back on that period with fond memories. My agent Bradley Orr kept saying to me, ‘You can’t give up, you’ve got to give everything you can until you’ve got no options left’, and I was lucky to have him by my side.

“The few months before I went to New York were the darkest times for me. I didn’t have suicidal thoughts, but looking back I was definitely depressed. I’d lock myself away. My mum was really worried about me.”

Six months after the surgery in New York, Williams’ outlook had been transformed. He was fit enough to earn himself a two-year contract with Rochdale, making 68 appearances for them before joining Blackpool as a free agent last summer. During his time at Rochdale, he found himself renamed”MJ” rather than “Jordan” and it’s stuck ever since.

“There was another lad there called Jordan Williams,” he explains. “We played Southend away and there were two Jordan Williams on the team sheet. Southend complained because the two lads who were supposed to be marking us at corners didn’t know which Jordan it was.

“The EFL got in touch with Rochdale and said one of us needed to have a different name. My birth name was Michael Jordan Williams, but I never used the Michael. Everyone always called me Jordan. But from then on they put ‘MJ’ on my shirt. I’ve wanted to go back to Jordan since but when I walked into Blackpool and then Bolton it was ‘all right MJ’ so I’ve just stayed with it.”

Shortly after relaunching his playing career in 2018, he met his girlfriend, Claire. They have recently bought a house together in the Wirral town of West Kirby.

“We’ve been together about three years and she’s everything to me, she’s my rock,” he says.

“She’s such a strong person and she’s been so supportive. She said to me, ‘It’s such a short career, you need to dedicate your whole life to football’. I’ve done that and it’s paying off.

“She’s got two little lads who are amazing. Even if I have a bad game and I’m feeling down, I come home and I forget all about it now. I’ve got a family of my own to look after and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I just wish I’d met her earlier because with her by my side I wouldn’t have ended up in such a dark place.”

A cracked bone in his arm hampered his progress at Blackpool before Christmas and when Bolton came calling in January, Neil Critchley didn’t stand in his way. Williams embraced the challenge of trying to help revive the fortunes of a club that had fallen from the Premier League to League Two inside eight years and was on the brink of going out of existence just two years ago.

“The manager Ian Evatt was one of the main reasons I went there. He really sold it to me,” Williams says.

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Williams (left) celebrating Bolton’s promotion to League One (Photo: Steve Bardens/Getty Images)
“I wanted to be part of something special. I don’t think either of us thought it would go this well but I’ve absolutely loved it. I love playing for him, he’s a top manager and a top guy.

“I signed for 18 months and if I play a certain number of games next season it will secure me an extra year. We’ve got ourselves back into League One and the fans deserved that after everything they’ve been through. Now the club is on the way back up and we want to go even higher. The target now is to get into the Championship. I’m sure next season when the fans are allowed back in the place is going to be rocking and I can’t wait for that.”

Sat among those Bolton supporters come August will be mum Alison. There was an emotional phone call with her on the pitch following last weekend’s promotion-clinching win at Crawley.

“I think she’d had a few drinks as she was screaming down the phone! My mum is so happy right now,” he laughs.

“It’s been tough for her this season, watching all the games on iFollow on her iPad. I owe a lot to her. Without her, I wouldn’t be where I am now.

“Next season she’ll be there. I’m just glad that when the stadium is rocking at Bolton I won’t be able to hear her shouting. At Rochdale, I’d always hear her on the sidelines and the boys would be looking at me as if you say, ‘Who’s this?’. She’s brilliant. It means a lot to her because it hurt her when I couldn’t play.”

For everything he’s been through, Williams is still only 25. Where once he looked ahead with a sense of dread and fear, now there’s only positivity and optimism.

“The tough times made me stronger and made me realise what’s important in life,” he says.

“I still speak to Riley in New York and I’m sure he’ll be buzzing when I tell him I’ve got promoted. To him, that operation was just a little job. But for me, it was absolutely life-changing. He’s an amazing man.

“I was so close to retiring from football at such a young age. I didn’t think there was a way back. It nearly got taken away from me. It makes me really appreciate what I’ve got now, on and off the pitch.”