DEPARTING goalkeeper Owain Fôn Williams has been hailed as a leader and a great ambassador for Athletic.

That’s the view of manager John Hughes, who revealed that the 34-year-old was given a standing ovation by his team-mates as he said his final goodbyes on Monday.

The club announced that the Welsh international, who has also been working as their goalkeeping coach, had left because of family reasons.

Hughes, who has brought former Livingston, Cardiff City, Rangers, Hearts and Scotland keeper Neil Alexander onto his coaching team, said that Fôn Williams should be remembered fondly at East End.

Having joined initially on loan from Hamilton Academical in January 2020, Fôn Williams played six games before COVID-19 brought the season to an early halt, and went on to join the Pars permanently that summer.

Last term, he played 33 times as the Pars finished fourth in the Championship, and contested the Premiership play-off quarter-final, but started the current league campaign on the bench behind Deniz Mehmet.

Then manager Peter Grant brought the experienced former Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Tranmere Rovers number one back into the side for a defeat at Ayr United in mid-September, and he went on to play 20 more games for the club.

His last came at the venue where he made his first – Queen of the South – and kept a clean sheet in a vital 2-0 victory.

Off the pitch, Fôn Williams also used his passion and talent for art to benefit the club, with a Pars painting that he created during lockdown two years ago raising £3,000 for the ‘Support the Pars’ campaign to help the club financially during that period.

“I can’t speak highly enough of what he’s done for the club,” Hughes said.

“He’s been here for two years and he was always up for it, always up for the challenge. No matter what he does, and where he goes, we wish him all the best.

“He’s excellent, excellent, excellent. With personal reasons, you have to sit back and acknowledge that, and he’ll be a miss.

“He was a senior player in the dressing room. He could keep that dressing room in hand, he was the captain when it wasn’t Graham Dorrans and, as I said, on Monday when we let the players know it was his last day, it was emotional.

“There was a wee lump in my throat and I could see a tear in Fonners’ eye when he was saying his goodbyes to the players.”

When it was put to him that he’d be a big miss both in the dressing room and off the pitch, and that Fôn Williams was a leader and great ambassador for the club, Hughes replied: “That’s exactly it.

“I never said that, but you could quote me on that, what you’ve just said. Fantastic leadership qualities, a great ambassador in the way he conducts himself, and we can only wish him all the best.”

Hughes moved quickly to secure the services of Alexander to work with Jakub Stolarczyk and Deniz Mehmet, until the end of the season.

The 44-year-old, who was most recently coaching at Dundee United until last summer, has also been registered as a player, with Hughes adding: “Deniz is still a couple of weeks away (from fitness), so Neil is still quite fit and he will be doing the goalie coaching, and we will be sitting him on the bench until Deniz is back fit.

“I am thinking that he will know how to get the best out of Deniz and it is up to Deniz to push Jakub the full way.”