HAMILTON goalkeeper Owain Fon Williams is not anyone’s idea of a typical footballer. Away from the game, the 32-year-old paints in oils, holds exhibitions of his work and sells his art through his own website. He is a man of substance, as he proved last week by continuing to report for work while his baby daughter fought for her life.
Fon Williams not only fulfilled his contractual obligations, he shut out Kilmarnock to help secure that crucial first victory of the Premiership campaign, a result which was more than welcome following their 3-0 opening-day defeat by Ross County the previous weekend. However, the clean sheet was far from the best thing which happened to the Welsh international.
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Jon Flanagan: Winning the title with Rangers would make up for that late title slip-up with Liverpool"It hasn't been an easy week for me,” he revealed. "My little girl, Sali - she's just ten weeks old – has been in hospital. She was being treated for meningitis and I only got the news she was getting out just before the game.
"I was over the moon when I heard she was on her way home. I haven't had much sleep because I was in the hospital for a few days. She went in on Wednesday evening, we were in A&E all night and then I went to training. I then went straight back to the hospital; you’re doing all you can. I’m so grateful to all the staff at Wishaw hospital. They were fantastic, every single one of them; I can't speak highly enough of them. They do so much for us.
"I am now delighted to go back home and have her in my hands. I don't really care about sleepless nights...she can do whatever she wants.”
Fon Williams was the busier of the two goalkeepers, with fine saves to deny Innes Cameron and Rory McKenzie and he admits that being at work helped him cope with his personal problems.
"I’m not one for shying away from things,” he said. “There are ups and downs in life and you need to do your best. It's tough. Sali's my little girl, she's our first child and I didn't really know what was going on. I’m not very experienced in this field but the doctors and nurses were fantastic.
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Neil Lennon: My squad at Celtic is so strong now I don't have a first choice eleven"It probably helped to get away from things at football. Training was tough and the game was maybe something to take my mind off what was going in the background but Sali is home and we won so it was a great day overall.”
Lewis Smith (son of former Herald journalist Graeme) opened the scoring with his first goal in his first start and the 19-year-old was the best performer on view. He provided a superb curling finish from 18 yards to beat Laurentiu Branescu and then saw George Oakley divert another of his shots behind the Romanian to complete the scoring.
Scotland manager Steve Clarke, who took Killie to third place last season, was an interested spectator and he must have felt like a man who had sold a beautiful family home to a Lottery winner and returned to see it trashed. The Ayrshire club hadn’t lost at Hamilton since April, 2010 and were unbeaten in their previous eight meetings with them but they could have had few complaints here as Angelo Alessio’s men slumped to a third successive defeat.
“I just want to see us getting back to being the dirty Kilmarnock,” said midfielder Alan Power. "By that, I don’t mean going around smashing people, I just mean getting in people’s faces, winning second balls and being really hard to beat. Teams didn’t like playing us last season and we don’t want that to fall away but, as a team, we’re conceding silly goals.”
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