Nairn County manager Wayne Mackintosh backed to be success in Highland League by former midfield partner and Ross County loanee Jamie Williamson
Former Nairn County midfielder Jamie Williamson has backed Wayne Mackintosh to be a success as manager at Station Park.
The Ross County teenager joined Nairn on loan last season, playing alongside and learning directly from Mackintosh in the middle of the park.
Although ankle injuries restricted Williamson’s game time in the Highland League, he still looks back at his time with Nairn last season as an extremely valuable learning experience.
It was the youngster’s first loan move away from Dingwall to play senior football, and he wanted to add some physicality to his game – as well as learning some of football’s dark arts.
With that in mind, there was arguably nobody better to learn from than former Nairn boss Ross Tokely, and the new man in charge Mackintosh.
Having worked so closely with the Wee County’s new manager, Williamson saw first hand what Mackintosh will be bringing to the table at Station Park, and he believes it will only bode well for Nairn next season.
“I think everyone could see he would be quite good at management,” Williamson said.
“He’s really switched on, and he has a good footballing brain. I could always see that side of him, and he actually helped out with a few sessions while I was there.
“Even before games, he would give us little bits of information on the other team which really helped.
“I have no doubts that he will have an impact on the team there, just like he has done for years. He will be good enough to take them forward, and hopefully they can improve on this season.
“For me personally, I’m more used to getting close to people on the pitch and having that contact now – I used to struggle with the dirty side of the game.
“Playing alongside guys like Wayne Mackintosh who is renowned for having that physicality really helped me add that to my game.
“I really enjoyed that, and even if it’s not the stronger side of my game now it’s definitely not a weakness anymore.”
Williamson was the latest member of Ross County’s academy to make a temporary move to Nairn.
In particular, the likes of Andrew Macleod and George Robesten went from impressing at Station Park last year to featuring for the Staggies’ first team this season, so naturally Williamson sought insight from those two about what to expect.
“I don’t think I heard a bad word from either of them about Nairn, they had a lot of good things to say – especially Andy, who had a really good spell,” Williamson added.
“I really tried to get everything I could off those guys to see what the boys and the facilities were like, and they didn’t have a bad word to say.
“I wanted to follow in their footsteps. I almost had to live up to Andy’s reputation since we play similar positions, which maybe I didn’t do, but hopefully going forward I can make the same kind of process they did.
“Going in, I had really high expectations, and to be honest Nairn lived up to that.
“It was a bit of a shock to the system at first. I have belief in my ability, but my first game was against Brechin so I was thrown in at the deep end, but I really enjoyed it and I think it has set me up well for men’s football.”
