Former Wolves youngster Will Randall on 'living the dream' and making retirement decision at 28

The loss of a structure, the comfort blanket of being very well looked after, the constant camaraderie of being part of a thriving dressing room. Waking up the first morning after those have disappeared can take a great deal of getting used to.

Former Wolves youngster Will Randall took the brave decision to hang up his boots last summer at the age of just 28. The skilful winger, who can boast a Wembley assist and National League promotion to his name alongside three years spent at Molineux, had not suffered any serious injury or specific issue.

Still playing at a decent level in non-league, there were also several contract offers on the table.

Randall just felt that the time was right.  Time to move on, and make a fresh start.  But even with making a decision that was completely under his own control, he admits it was difficult.

Only now, a few months on, has he felt ready to take another big step.  Going public on his new venture as an online performance coach, helping men make improvements to their physical condition and, by association, their mental health.

A decade on from first arriving at Wolves, wide-eyed and full of high hopes, he is making moves on a completely new chapter.  To some extent a nervous time, but also a very exciting one.

“At the end of last season, I was still trying to fight on in terms of the football, I had dropped into non-league but was still enjoying it and had offers on the table,” says Randall.

“But I was kind of – and it feels difficult to say because I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to live my childhood dream – at a point where I wanted to choose my happiness.

“Football is such a short and often turbulent career, and I’ve been to many different clubs, that I just decided to take this step and pursue other opportunities.

“Because of the sort of career it is, it would only have been a few years when I would have probably been forced to retire and plan something new anyway!

“I just reached the stage where I wanted to do it now.  It’s not that I’m not grateful for my time – I’m incredibly grateful – but it’s about getting into that whole new world outside of football.

“It’s about pushing into a new chapter of my life which I’m very excited about.

“I didn’t retire due to an injury or anything to do with pride or dropping down too low.

“It was literally just thinking that for over ten years I’d lived my childhood dream, but now it’s not right for me anymore, and time to take my life in a new direction.”

Randall is now taking on clients for his new vocation, with a strong ambition and determination to make it a success.

The sort of ambition and determination which first took him into the world of football, the sport he first started playing at the age of just four.

At seven, he was taken on by the academy of hometown club Swindon Town, starting another journey which so often provides a rollercoaster ride both in results and emotions.

At one point he broke his knee playing for his school.  In another, around the age of 14, there were doubts whether he would be kept on.

But he was, he flourished, and at the tender age of 17 and one day, made his senior Swindon debut, coming off the bench in front of almost 9,000 at the County Ground in League One against Rotherham.

“That was an incredible day,” Randall recalls.

“I mean, nowadays you’ve got wonder kits doing a craziness even younger than I was, and maybe it felt different back then.

“I can’t put into words how nervous I was when the gaffer told me to get warm because I was coming on.

“It’s one of those great memories that football has given me, something I will certainly never forget.”

Randall made another ten senior appearances for Swindon over the following 18 months.

Still very much a eenager, all those appearances gave him positive and invaluable experience, but he also admits it should have been more.

There was a spell of interest from Premier League Bournemouth which proved something of a distraction, both for Randall personally and Swindon as a whole, especially as negotiations over a new contract stalled as a result.

“Back then my goal was to play in the Premier League, so I was thinking I would have loved that opportunity,” he admits.

“But Swindon are obviously a good club, who were in League One, and with hindsight if I had signed the contract, I could have played a lot more games and built from there.

“That was a bit of a hiccup, but otherwise I loved my time at Swindon and getting to play for my hometown club.”

The considerable promise shown by Randall had drawn him to Wolves’ attention and, in January 2016, when still only 18, he made the move up the M5.

To some extent it was a difficult time to join, as Wolves had been put up for sale by chairman Steve Morgan and were effectively treading water with Head Coach Kenny Jackett tasked with keeping things stable as a buyer was sought.

And once the ownership did change, with Fosun arriving and the purse strings very much loosened, opportunities for young players such as Randall were quickly to become more scarce

But that’s to take nothing away from the delight and excitement when heading down the drive at the Compton training ground for the very first time.

“I remember arriving at Compton and thinking that the facilities were incredible, and it was all a little bit overwhelming,” Randall recalls.

“It was obviously a big jump from where I had been before, and it felt like a wonderful achievement.

“At the same time, moving away from home was a bit difficult as it often is for the first time, and it was a bit of a tough transition, joining such a big club and a lot of young players who had been with Wolves for a good few years.

“I still remember my first training session and thinking, wow, this standard is something else.

“Then you have to adapt, which I did, and that time went on to bring me some of my best memories in football.”

Among those memories are, as ever, the people.

Under coach Scott Sellars, Randall went straight into the Under-23 line up, alongside the likes of Morgan Gibbs White, Connor Ronan, Donovan Wilson and Bright Enobakhare.

“We still talk about Bright even now,” he admits.  “I know he had a very different journey, but what a player.”

Of Randall’s other team-mates from that time, he shared an apartment with Aaron Collins, who signed a couple of weeks later, and also remains in close touch with others such as Aaron Simpson and Daniel Armstrong.

All these years on, and with many of those still playing, they remain in regular contact and meet up whenever possible, another happy and enduring legacy for Randall of his experiences at Molineux.

“There were some great names in that team and I enjoyed working under Scott and also Seyi Olofinjana, who was his assistant,” Randall recalls.

“Myself and Aaron Simpson were speaking not so long ago about some of those that we played alongside, and for the first couple of years I loved it.

“When Paul Lambert came in, he gave young players more opportunities both in training and with some of them making appearances.

“Sometimes I was training with the first team consistently, and I felt like I was close, but then I went off and had several loans which didn’t really work out.

“They can often make or break you and it didn’t really happen for me - for whatever reason - and then the new owners at Wolves started bringing all the superstars in, which obviously went brilliantly for the club.

“Some of the lads like Morgan went on to do well, which he rightly deserved, but for a lot of us young players, that was the end, and we had our contracts paid up and moved on.

“But, even though I didn’t progress to the first team, it will always be such a special part of my life.

“I made some brilliant friends who I am still in contact with, and, when we speak about Wolves now, they were definitely some of my favourite memories.

“We were all around the same age, with the same responsibilities, and just built such a strong connection, on and off the pitch.

“It all changed quite dramatically towards the end, but it would never take anything away from the experience and how much I enjoyed my time at Wolves.”

When moving on in the summer of 2019, Randall did so with a heart full of memories and a game and mentality backed by some top coaching and matchplay at Under-23 level.

But what he admits he was missing, after having initially tasted first team football so early in his career, was that vital first team experience which he could have taken on to his next footballing port of call.

“I remember when myself and Aaron Collins came to Wolves, we had both played around 15 senior games each, which was quite rare going into Under-23s football,” Randall explains.

“But then, after three years of that with just a few games out on loan, I then came out of that set-up after Wolves without too much first team experience, and having to re-adapt.

“You have to prove yourself all over again, and it’s actually difficult to find a club who will take you, and that’s even with all the positives of everything I had learned at Wolves and how it had shaped me.

“Looking back, I probably wished I knew a bit more at that time about how volatile it could all be.”

Randall, however, did manage to rebuild, with no small amount of strength and resilience helping him regroup and find a fresh direction.

It was with Sutton United, initially in the National League, that he started to flourish again, helping them to promotion into League Two, and then the 2022 Football League Trophy final at Wembley.

Sutton lost 4-2 to Rotherham after extra time in front of a crowd of over 30,000, but Randall produced an assist, for fellow Wolves’ alumni Donovan Wilson, during another experience to savour.

“At the time, moving down to non-league with Sutton meant taking a hit, and one I wouldn’t have expected having started out in League One,” he admits.

“But it made me.  A million per cent, it helped me to rebuild.

“To get promoted, to play at Wembley, to nearly make the play-offs when that cup run probably ended up being a distraction with so many games, it was such an exciting time.

“Football-wise it was probably the best of my career, with so many more great memories, and I also went back to Swindon and scored a couple of goals, which wasn’t about revenge or anything, it was just nice to do it in front of friends and family.”

After Sutton came Notts County, which didn’t really work out, before going back down he football pyramid until, after over 200 career appearances, and 18 goals, last summer’s decision for a fresh start, away from football.

It took him a while to decide on his next step. But when he did, it was to concentrate on fitness and performance, on being the best you can be. Drawing on all his experiences as a footballer and with all the different aspects of nutrition, conditioning, and so much more.  It was a natural switch.

“To be honest, it all started out as a kind of healing,” Randall explains.

“Because I am used to keeping fit, and even though retiring was my decision, it was still very tough.

“It was about keeping myself as active as possible, and then, towards the end of last year, I started thinking about how much I was working on myself both mentally and physically.

“I thought maybe I was doing myself a disservice. I had learned so much from football about fitness in terms of diet, nutrition, conditioning, all of it, that I could potentially create something new from all of that

“I have always aimed to try and keep myself in the best shape mentally and physically, and so it feels natural to move into a world where I can pass all that on to other people who want to do the same.

“It still all feels very new, I was procrastinating a bit about putting it all out there on social media and being vulnerable, but all those lads from Wolves that I mentioned just told me to get out there and do it!

“It is so difficult to come out of football where you have had that structure with everything done for you, and maybe I can help some of those lads who have been on the same journey that I did and found it challenging.

“That football identity and structure is kind of impossible to find once you’ve finished, but you can rebuild and find a new chapter.

“The way I am looking at it, if I can support one person and make a difference then I will have achieved something.

“Whether that is former players who are transitioning into life after finishing or people from the ‘real world’, it would be wonderful for me to be able to help.”

Now operating from a base back in Swindon, Randall has returned to where it all began, and his footballing dreams were launched on the pitches of his hometown’s Academy.

Armed with the knowledge, expertise and experience to take the next chapter of his working life.