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As he prepares to win his 50th cap for his adopted country, Ashley Williams opens up on what it means to play for Wales, his relationship with Gareth Bale and why he can’t bring himself to think of not making it to Euro 2016.

In one of his most revealing interviews, the captain of Wales speaks to Football Correspondent CHRIS WATHAN.

‘Ashley Williams, he’s not even Welsh’.

In the heat of a South Wales derby, the retort from some Cardiff City fans was as cutting as it was cold.

“To be honest, I chuckled,” said Williams, the player whose Swansea supporters had taken pride in pointing out is captain of Wales. After all, as he points out, in a way they’re right.

In his booming West Midlands tones, the 30-year-old knows he can’t escape the fact that he wasn’t born this side of the Severn. There’s been no dragon hastily tattooed on his chest a la Vinnie Jones and there’s no attempt to try and deny the undeniable.

But, as he speaks candidly about his time in a red shirt ahead of this weekend’s landmark, there is no getting away from the fact that few are better qualified to wear it.

“I get asked it a lot and I have to explain it a lot, which is fine, because I know I’m not Welsh as such,” says the defender. “I wasn’t born here, I grew up watching England in football, rugby, whatever. I have Welsh blood but I’m not stupid enough to go around saying I’m Welsh when I was born where I was born – but I know what I feel.

Ashley Williams' Wales career in pictures

“I’ve lived here for seven years and I have roots here; my kids are Welsh, they’ll go to school here, our family and our home are here and will probably stay here when I retire.

“So I know people will have their opinions about it, but I feel Welsh and hopefully people can see I’ve given my all for the country. I’ve played through injuries, learned the anthem before we were told to do it as a squad, researched the teams of the past, I’ve thrown myself into it. I know what it means because I feel it.”

Williams smiles when he tells of how his two oldest of three children, Raphael and Xavier, speak with a Swansea twang and while his accent remains as thick as it did when he first arrived in South Wales in March 2008, he laughs when explaining he tells wife Vanessa that he’ll do things ‘now in a minute’.

And all by chance. Brian Flynn, then Wales’ youth chief, had travelled to Stockport’s Edgeley Park to watch Wayne Hennessey on loan from Wolves when impressed by the then 23-year-old centre-back. If not for the fact of his father’s surname, the question that revealed his maternal links to the land of his grandfather may never have come.

Welsh links

“I can remember the text from our assistant manager, Pete Ward who played for Flynny at Wrexham,” recalls Williams. “All it said was if I had any Welsh in me. That was it, no explanation.

“I knew all about my links (through mother Lyn’s Gelli-born father Bill Rowlands), my aunts and cousins are all Welsh, so I explained and the text came back: ‘You could nick a cap here.’”

John Toshack duly named Williams in the squad to play Luxembourg – a game that took place seven years ago this Thursday – but not before casting his own eyes over the former non-league defender once released by West Brom as a schoolboy.

“He’s said since he’d seen enough to know I was good enough to leave at half-time,” says Williams of Stockport’s League Two game at Hereford shortly before the call-up. “But he’s told me the reason he left was because he’d thought: ‘He’s s**t’! Somehow he still picked me.”

(Image: Huw Evans Agency, Cardiff)

And started him, winning the first of 49 caps to date with the 50th set to come in far different circumstances in Haifa. No longer the nervous new boy, glad the likes of Craig Bellamy and James Collins were absent not to be overawed in strange international surroundings, now he is the captain Chris Coleman turned to as he looked to ensure the golden generation had some steely stewardship.

Williams admits there have been mistakes along the way since Coleman replaced the much missed Gary Speed, both by the manager and by the team, but the fact they have come through it together has strengthened a bond and a belief between them that this qualifying campaign can be different.

So far it has been, the spirit evident from the stands and the squad with the attitude and images of a world class talent like Gareth Bale leading in his own right perhaps best summing up the new feel to this campaign. It would have been easy for a more insecure character to have felt threatened; Williams is anything but.

Bale support

“He’s come out of his shell in terms of leadership,” he says of Bale. “He’s taken it upon himself and for me it’s brilliant, that was perfect, because sometimes a captain needs someone they can lean on. I haven’t felt at all as if he’s trying to take the armband off me; if the manager thought that Gareth would be a better skipper I’d be all for it because it’s whatever best for us to get to France. It’s great especially with the experience of these big games he has.”

Of which Saturday in Israel is very much one of them, a player who worked part-time while playing for Hednesford Town hitting a half-century at the highest level. Ability aside, of which he has it in spades, it hasn’t happened by accident with his club boss, Garry Monk, recently describing the almost-ever present Williams as a machine when it comes to fitness.

Ashley Williams for Wales Debut v Luxembourg March 2008

“I never thought I’d get to this point. How could I have? I hadn’t thought about playing for Wales before that text because, well, why would I at the level I was?” he asks. “Then it was getting one cap to say I’m an international footballer, then it was wondering if I could get to 10, 20....now I’m on 49. There’s better players than me who retired before getting to 50 so I’ve been lucky. I’ve made that effort to stay fit to play as many games as possible.”

The cynic who sees players put club before country and the way the importance of international football asks why? Why when team-mates are enjoying the R and R of international breaks put his body through it?

“I don’t know – my family ask me the same, worried I won’t be able to walk or play with the kids when I’m older,” he reveals.

“The only thing I can think of is that it’s the why I was brought up, the way my dad was, the way the guys were I played with at Hednesford.

Wales buzz 'still the same'

"Back then if you could get on the pitch you did. At the time it meant a lot getting your appearance money because, well, you needed it.

“And that buzz of playing for your country is still the same. There’s been tough times and there are moments and matches when you question why you’re away from your kids. But when you retire there are players who will retire with a lot of things, memories and money and lifestyle – but not many will have international caps.”

Fewer still will be able to say they have played in a major finals, an ambition that burns bright with Williams, for himself and for the country he is so obviously proud to represent.

Because while Saturday will mark a personal landmark, more significant to Williams is the step towards something “far better players than me” have not managed. He has achieved much more than he ever anticipated, but one last goal stands in front of him.

(Image: Nick Potts/PA Wire)

“I will probably never play Champions League and I may be too old for the World Cup. There are things I won’t achieve,” he says.

“I never expected any of it but now this is there, it’s in touching distance. If it all ended tomorrow I could be satisfied with what I’ve done – winning promotion, winning the League Cup, playing in Europe, the caps I have – but because this is so close, because we’ve given ourselves this chance, I can’t think about not qualifying. If we had started badly it would have been ‘oh well’ but now it’s down to us, it’s in our hands. I can’t imagine the regret if we don’t.”

There is almost a wince when he speaks as he goes on to explain how he still struggles to overcome the lows with Wales, of which there have been plenty over seven years where hope has been fast extinguished.

'No-one's thinking of not getting there'

“They are always worse,” he says, the 6-1 loss to Serbia and a personally poor game against Bulgaria springing to mind. “But the good moments are incredible. It’s like that now. I can only imagine how good the high could be if we make it to France.

“No-one’s thinking of not getting there, we’re all talking about making it and how good it will feel.

“There’s a responsibility wearing that shirt, something I’m aware of.

“And perhaps the fact I wasn’t born here means I could never go out giving it half-hearted because I know I’d be letting them down. It’s not even about proving you’re a good player, but proving that commitment, that I’m worthy to wear a Wales shirt.”

Williams has done that 49 times over. As he prepares to make it 50, Wales’ couldn’t ask for more from their natural-born leader.