Birthday greetings to Rhyl 1879 striker Laura Williams

One of the best re-emergences in the 2021-22 North Wales women’s football season so far has been the comeback of today’s featured birthday girl.

Many happy returns to Laura Williams of CPD Y Rhyl 1879 – born on November 12, 1985.

Laura was one of the former Rhyl FC women’s side’s most prominent players in their Welsh Premier League stint between 2014-15 and 2018-19.

She had earlier helped Prestatyn Ladies lift the North Wales League title, which led to a Welsh Premier qualification play-off won 10-0 by the Denbighshire coast side against Aberystwyth University.

The team became known as Rhyl and Prestatyn in their inaugural WPWL season and Laura soon made her mark, registering the Lilywhites’ first national league hat-trick in a 3-2 victory over Aberystwyth Town in January 2015.

Laura twice had the hosts ahead, the first from a 33rd-minute penalty and the second via a 30-yard free kick after 78 minutes.

However, Aber battled well and when they made it 2-2 in the 85th minute it looked like they had earned a point.

Williams had other ideas and clinched the points with a fantastic free kick decider in the dying stages.

As the seasons progressed, Laura shone regularly with her tremendous close control, strength, shooting ability and quality from dead-ball situations.

North Wales girls being named Welsh Premier Player of the Month were always a rarity, but Laura achieved this feat in the 2017-18 campaign.

The Rhyl striker was chosen as Orchard WPWL Player of the Month for January 2018, her performances including two cracking goals in a 3-3 home draw with Caldicot.

She was also named player of the game on more than one occasion by opposing coaches.

In the build-up to that season Laura had also bagged a memorable hat-trick in a 5-1 whipping of Altrincham.

After Rhyl resigned from the top-flight in August 2019, Laura took a break from the game.

She decided to return for 2020-21 as part of the new CPD Y Rhyl 1879 squad, but the entire season ended up cancelled due to Covid.

Summer 2021 was a good one for 1879 as they re-signed a number of former players, including Laura, and added some young talent to the squad.

And the current campaign has started really well, with Rhyl unbeaten in the North Wales Women’s League and Laura showing she has lost none of her attacking skills.

She has so far scored goals in wins over Bangor 1876 and Welshpool, while her overall game remains as strong as ever.

Happy birthday Laura – have a great day.