Ruardean Hill Rangers are a club going places and joint Manager Paul Williams couldn’t be happier.

The 40-year-old is in his second season in charge of first team affairs at the go-ahead football club – a job he does alongside Adrian Cole – and if this season is anything like as successful as the last campaign, they should have a ticker-tape parade in the Forest of Dean village come the beginning of May.

That’s because this season the club are playing in the County League – the highest level they have played in their history – after winning promotion from Northern Senior League Division One at the end of last term.

For Williams, his success as joint manager is a continuation of the success he enjoyed as a player at the club.

“We’ve won three divisions in the past six years,” he said, “starting with the North Gloucestershire League Premier Division.

“And we don’t want to stop now. We want to take the club as far as we can, we’d love to get into the Hellenic League in the next few years.

“For that to happen we’ve got to keep everybody fit, keep strengthening the squad and take it week by week.”

Williams joined the club in the early noughties and was a regular in the side, playing at sweeper under current joint boss Cole before snapping his Achilles three seasons ago.

It was a bad injury and took him a year to get over, and it effectively ended his playing career.

He took a year out of football – “I watched Ruardean and Cinderford Town,” he said – before linking up with his old gaffer again at Ruardean.

So, what kind of management team are they?

“We work well together,” Williams said. “We obviously don’t agree on everything but we work things through when that is the case. I’d say Adrian is the harder one of the two, I tend to be a bit calmer and will put an arm around people’s shoulders.”

Even though he is still young in management terms, Williams has plenty of playing experience to call on should things get difficult in the coming months.

He was part of the youth set-up at Gloucester City before going on to play for Cinderford who were then managed by current Gloucester boss Tim Harris.

And one of the great strengths of Ruardean is that it is not just about the first team.

We’ve got three adult teams,” said Williams, “one in the North Gloucestershire League Premier Division and the other in Division Two of the Northern Senior League.

“We’re trying to get the 2nds at a higher level so that the jump from second team to first team isn’t so great.”

The club also run three youth teams, so the future of the club looks to be in good hands.

“We train twice a week,” added Williams. “We’re a thriving club at the moment. We’re a very close club and everybody from the committee down mucks in.”