FRESH STARTS! August MOTM awards for Fulham and Wycombe

After fantastic starts to the season, August’s FAWNL Manager of the Month awards go to two newly-promoted managers: Fulham’s Steve Jaye in the Premier Division, and Wycombe Wanderers’ Carl Simon in Division One.

Clare McEwen gets you up to speed on the clubs’ excellent starts and speaks to both managers.

FULHAM – SOUTHERN PREMIER DIVISION – STEVE JAYE

Fulham Women have a long and varied history but in their current incarnation they seem to be building a lasting legacy. Head coach Steve Jaye has been at the helm for eight years and has steered the team to back-to-back promotions from Tier 5 into Tier 3.

The team came into the FAWNL Southern Premier Division this season having completed a 47-game unbeaten league. 

But the Premier Division is a big step up, even for a team who have been gradually bringing more professionalism to their approach over recent years.

An opening fixture against recently relegated Portsmouth – a full-time WSL2 side last season – would give Fulham a marker. But it wasn’t the marker most anticipated. In a close run game, the newly promoted champions stole three points. In the next two league games, they convincingly beat Real Bedford and Plymouth Argyle.

Fulham remained unbeaten in August, stretching their unbeaten league run to 50, and earning Steve Jaye August’s Premier Division FAWNL Manager of the Month.

Nice to meet you, Steve. Congratulations on the award.  How are you doing? 

[Steve Jaye] Very well, thanks. Very humbled, shocked and surprised by being able to earn this award. I wasn’t expecting to be doing this today.

You’ve masterminded a ridiculously good start in a tough league. Tell me how you’ve managed to come into this league and start so well?

It’s a good question. Something we’re trying to figure out a little bit, but ultimately we’ve been working incredibly hard behind the scenes to try and put processes in place, systems in place to make sure we’re ready to compete at whatever level we are in, at the time.

This is a result of that work we’ve been putting in for the last five years. 

As part of our strategy, we have this line that talks about being prepared for the level above by the end of the season that we’re in.

And obviously, for us, the last couple of years, we’ve jumped levels. So trying to keep ahead of the curve has been difficult, but also, I think it’s the reason why we’re in a position where we’ve started off well.

You started with a game against full-time, former WSL2 side Portsmouth. Can you tell me about it, because it sets the standard, right? 

I think the game actually came at a great time for us.

We had a really good, interesting pre-season. We’d had a difficult game the weekend before and I think the group responded incredibly well to that. 

And it was a home game, which was particularly helpful – to be at home with our fans and to have everything that goes around not having to travel.

It was incredibly difficult. Portsmouth are a really good side, really well coached.

I think it gives us a benchmark as to how we might see our season panning out. 

We obviously scored in the last minute – I’m happy to be open about this – it could have gone either way. It was one of those games and we were just fortunate that we had what it took to get over the line at the end. 

But yeah, a great day.

And on that last minute goal, you’ve had some against Real Bedford as well. Sustaining a level of play across 90+ minutes sometimes separates teams as they move up levels. That doesn’t look like a problem for you, does that come from fitness and concentration – how do you work on things like that?

I think it’s a big cultural thing. In the past few years, we’ve had a lot of moments like that game or like the Bedford one, where we’ve scored later on.

Thinking back to last year, the game at Norwich away, where we scored in the last minute to win. Again it was quite an important fixture, an important result in the league title. 

London Bees, last game of the season, where four minutes before the end of the game we’re actually losing and then turning it around to win. 

I think it’s a cultural thing. I think the players and the staff collectively work incredibly hard to have this never give up attitude and this mentality that means we don’t know when we’re beaten.

I actually shared with the group in one of our recent games that I think it’s one of my biggest core values: around hard work and never giving up. It comes a lot from my background, of where I grew up and the position I was in, our family were in when I was growing up.

Those are things that we’re trying to instill across all of us. That’s a big contributing factor to being able to score goals in final moments.  And to make sure that – if you take the Swindon game – we’re able to make sure we don’t concede in the final 10 to 15 minutes of the game, when we just got ourselves in a position where we’re leading.

So, yeah, I think it’s cultural.

How have you approached the league, in general, as a manager? 

I’ve been fortunate. I’ve been doing this for a long time with the team – I’ve been here for eight years. The opportunity that’s given me is to learn on the job – what does and what maybe doesn’t work going into different league campaigns.

For the last couple of years, we have taken the approach that each week is the most important thing. So, let’s just focus on that. Let’s not worry about anything too far ahead.

Whilst we have plans in place to make sure that we are taking care of the future – like player decisions, making sure they’re as available as possible and things like that – we are fundamentally concerned about this weekend. That is the most important thing. 

We can’t control anything other than that. But if we control that as well as we can, and look after the things that are important, then we’re going to find ourselves in the best place to win the game.

It’s so cliche, and I’m sure people say it up and down the country, but that is probably the biggest learning I’ve ever taken from this game. If you have that approach, then you give yourself the best chance. 

We did it last year. We did it the year before. So we just rolled it into this season to see what would happen and obviously, at the moment, we’re in a really strong position. 

But we also know, as you said, this is a really tough league and there will be a time when we don’t win every game.

Have you done anything different to bring confidence to the players, to enable them to be the very best in this league? Or does that cultural mentality and taking it one week at a time just feed into that?

The group, generally, are very confident and they work incredibly hard together. They deserve more credit than I do for what we’ve achieved so far this year, because they’ve had to go out and deliver it.

And in an environment where I’m not experienced.  I’m not experienced at all at this level. This is new for me. 

We have players in the group who have experienced Tier 3 football before, or higher, and they deserve an incredible amount of credit for the way they’ve gone about their business. 

Some of those who are new to the environment have settled in really quickly. They’ve asked some really good questions about the way that we want to play. They’ve taken on the messages and have applied them really quickly. 

We haven’t had to have massive changes in the squad. I think we brought in five players this year. And last year, we only bought in four, at the start of the season. I think that’s a big part of the continuity piece as well. 

But they deserve a lot of credit for the work they’ve had to put in on the pitch to get into this position.

Has your messaging changed at all compared with last season?

We’re very process driven here, and we are very consistent with that. But we are also week to week. 

So if we play against certain opposition, there will be tweaks, there’ll be things that we have to change. 

The way I describe it is, we turn on the tap for the things that we know in our game model that will work this week and we turn it off for things that maybe won’t be as successful when we’re playing a team that, say, sits in a lower block.

We’re probably not going to find space in behind so we have to turn off that aspect of our game model and we have to turn on another aspect – that’s kind of the way we’ve always pictured it 

The game model that we have here, always evolves.

So yes to some degree, it does change, but the processes we put in place are the things that are holding strong here at the moment. 

As long as we recognise that it’s the processes that have got us here when things don’t quite go our way, then hopefully we can hold ourselves to the fact that the processes were still correct: we had the right ideas and just didn’t execute on the day. 

But no major changes. We have added an extra day of training in now, but aside from that, it’s pretty much the same programme as last season. 

You’ve alluded to your winning streak. You’ve had a couple of fantastic seasons. Did you expect to still be a few games into this season with your streak intact? 

No, I’d have bitten your hand off if you’d said this was the position we’d be in six weeks ago. 

That’s testament to the level that we’ve come into. We know there are a lot more teams that are competing at a similar level and we ended up playing against one of them in the first games of the season. And who was to say which way that would have gone on a different day.

We’re very fortunate that it went our way that day. But we also know that we’ve got a lot of work to do to be better than what we’ve already demonstrated. 

Another really cool piece about the culture we have –  we’ve not settled and said, ‘oh, do you know what, that performance was the best performance we could put in’.

The group has always had, ‘oh I think I could have done this better or we could have collectively done something a little bit different’. 

That’s not just players, that’s staff as well. I constantly reflect with my staff team on some things that we know we could do better.

And I think that’s a big part of some of the stuff we go through. We hope that this goes on for as long as it possibly can do, but we recognise – and we talk about it because it’s important – it will end at some point.

And that’s okay. I think I’m okay with that [laughs]. 

You’ve talked about the professional standards at the club. How does that help at this level?

It’s hard. You don’t have a parallel universe to be able to show you another way. 

But this is a great opportunity to share just how pleased and proud we are of the staff team around us, to continuously ensure the environment, the standards we have are the best they can possibly be.

We’ve been building this for the last five years. A lot of our staff have stayed with us over the course of that period of time and are developing with us, at a really great rate.

So yeah, we think those standards are important. We recognise they are important. We don’t know if there was another way but the guys do a great job of making sure we’re as professional as we can be. 

Looking ahead to the rest of the season, what do you want to improve both on and off the pitch?

I don’t think we’ve got long enough to be able to go through all those, but I think it’s important to recognise there are areas we need to develop and improve on the pitch.

The players and us as technical staff are keen to make sure our performances are as consistent, to the highest possible level of our potential, as they can be. And I think whilst we are winning at the moment and still feeling we’re not maybe performing to our best level, that’s a great place for us to be – as long as the players recognise there is a higher level to get to, and I think they do. 

Off the pitch. I think there’s lots of things. Ultimately we’re in a position at the moment where we’re very early on in the season, but in a position where we want to compete for the top end of the table. We want to be competing with the Portsmouths, Oxfords, Bournemouths of this division – who are at the top end with us at the moment – for promotion spots, whether that’s this year or in the future.

Basically, if we do have an aspiration to go into WSL2 at some point – which we do – we have to continue to develop because the jump from Tier 3 to Tier 2 is so big.

But for this season, it’s just about us building towards that. And if we find a way to win the league and get promoted, then amazing. We’ve had a great year and we’ve been able to build on the last two years’ worth of work and if we don’t this year, then I think we’re totally okay with that. 

Knowing that as long as we continue to grow and build off the pitch, to get us closer to the objective, which over time will be to get into WSL.

I think it’s the most ridiculous thing for people to suggest that we could go back-to-back-to-back. When you say it out loud, it sounds silly. So we’re not necessarily pushing that narrative but at the moment the players are putting us in a position where that is a conversation. And I think we also want to own a bit of that as well. 

Have the ambitions changed since coming in and doing so well?

No, to be blunt.

The week by week nature that we go about our business will never waver because we recognise, and particularly at this level, that a change in result – if you don’t win – is not the end of the world.

Whereas in previous seasons, we knew if we haven’t picked up three points, that could really have a detrimental effect on our ability to get promoted.

Last year we dropped points in two games  – we drew those games – and we had to go down to the third to last game of the season to be able to win the league. And that was based on another result in another game. 

So our game by game mentality is super key. 

We know that you can drop points at this level, it’s inevitable, it’s going to happen. So we want to be pushing for the top four position and we want to compete with the best in this league.

And if we end up being the best, then great, we’ll be ready for that  jump. 

But if we don’t, then we’ve shown some unbelievable standards and ability to create this environment that goes from being top of Tier 4 to near the top end of Tier 3 within the space of three months.

Which we should be incredibly proud of, regardless of what we do. 

Absolutely, for most teams the ambition is to stay in the league. 

It’s crazy for people to think that back-to-back-to-back is a genuine goal or ambition because I think if you have that as a result, that outcome-focused goal, and you don’t achieve that, then all the things you do behind the scenes, like the performance related stuff, is just irrelevant.

You can’t be driven by an outcome goal in that way. We’re very much process driven.

It’s important to us to make sure we know that we’ve grown, regardless of what happens.

WYCOMBE WANDERERS – DIVISION ONE SOUTH WEST – CARL SIMON

After an excellent campaign in the Southern Region Women’s Premier Division last season, Wycombe Wanderers were promoted into Division One South West of the FAWNL for 2026-27.

Led by Carl Simon, who’s been Head Coach since April 2022, the team reached Division One for the first time. Rather than being overwhelmed by the step up in quality, Wycombe have hit the ground running.

Their opening game against fellow promotion winners, Torquay, set them up, winning all three points in a tight contest. From there they beat Keynsham Town before another tight win, this time over Bournemouth Sports. And this completed a very successful August – three wins from three. 

This flawless start to their life in the Women’s National League earned Carl Simon the August Division One FAWNL Manager of the Month award. 

Congratulations on Manager of the Month, Carl. Thoroughly deserved. Winning your three opening games at your first time in Tier 4 is impressive. How have you steered Wycombe to such a good start in the WNL?

[Carl Simon] Thank you very much.

It’s really a continuation in the work we’ve been doing over the past four years. We’ve got a good core base of the squad that we’ve retained, and we’ve been building year on year. 

So we’ve always been preparing – the past two years – to be a Tier 4 club, in terms of our environment and the players we’ve recruited.

We wanted to step into Tier 4 without too many problems. And we’ve done that, pretty much, so far. 

You started against Torquay, how important was it to get a good start against them?

They’d also been promoted – it was champions versus champions – so we’ve both got that good positive feeling of the previous season. 

That was a really important game, to set a little marker down in terms of the promoted clubs, and it was really important to get that win. It was a fantastic goal by Megan [Marie Arnott] that sealed it for us on the day.

A really pleasing day and result.

Did that then boost confidence to push on to the next couple of games?

Yeah, winning brings good energy. Everyone’s feeling good, everything’s positive and it just kept going really.

What’s impressed you most about your team in the opening games?

It’s the work really, and committing to what you’re trying to do – that’s the most impressive thing. 

A lot of our players have full-time jobs – some quite senior positions as well. 

I’m always grateful, and quite humbled, about the amount of time, the commitment they give. 

A lot of people travelling an hour plus each way in an evening, after a really long day at work.

And they come into training and go hell for leather, no complaining at all. 

It’s quite inspiring to be honest with you. 

So, yeah, that’s the most pleasing thing for me. 

Do you think that stands you in good stead, that level of dedication?

Yeah, it’s the power of the group and their dedication and commitment to the sport and the club – which is something we always want to be grateful for.

We want to be full-time, fully-paid professionals in whatever we do. Only a few are lucky enough, in men’s and women’s football, to be able to achieve that aim. But for the majority of people who play the game of football, it is something they love to do. 

And it’s not just the football. It’s the camaraderie, the environment, the fitness, the mental health, everything that goes with it. 

It enriches people’s lives. 

I’m very grateful and we respect the effort of every player and everything they do.

It’s a tough league. How have you approached the league and the challenge so far? 

Yeah, it’s a step up. I think the biggest thing is the quality of the players across the league is a lot higher.

You can’t make mistakes in this league and you don’t get as many chances, that’s for sure. Everyone’s very competent, they’re skilled footballers.

That makes it much more challenging. It’s a lot more about decision making and concentration levels than it is about technical ability, because they’re all good players in this league.

It’s those moments, those magical moments. You’re not going to be brushing people aside, five and six-nil at this level. I think that’s the biggest difference.

How do you manage your time with coaching and working etc?

With great difficulty [laughs].

Between management meetings and coaching meetings and session planning and delivering sessions and the games and the preparation that goes into it behind the scenes. And then video analysis and everything else and also the travel.

Quite poorly, I’d say, is how I manage my time because there isn’t much of it!

Once you’ve done your working day and everything else, and you’ve got your family as well, and life. And then you’ve got this hard commitment, which is football, and it’s a season-long commitment.

There are no holidays, there are no days off. We have a schedule that we have to follow. Starting from June pre-season, until April, May, and that’s us locked in.

The only time we get off really is a couple of weeks or so over the Christmas period – that’s the only genuine time you get off.

There’s cancellations and things like that, but you can’t schedule real life around those things.

I get Christmas off and then I might get myself a little bit just before pre-season and back again. So yeah, it’s a bit of a merry-go-round but it’s one that we enjoy and we do it for the love. 

Tell me about yourself as a manager and your philosophy and style of play?

For me, it’s just about being proactive.

Because that’s the level of football that we play in.

We don’t play at a level of football where we can go and buy the players we want, play the type of football we want. 

You can’t always see all the things or have a scouting network to understand how teams play. 

As I’ve gone on in my coaching career, I’ve realised it’s about being proactive within the remit of the game – that’s the most important thing.

That’s something I try to get into my players. I want my players to be able to make decisions, proactively, depending on the game state. Because that’s something that’s the best we can do at any given time.

So that’s kind of my philosophy, being proactive, being front-footed. Trying to control the situation, get into the control state, and usually that gives you a better chance of success.

Have you asked anything different of your players this season?

I can’t say that I have, really. I’ve been here a while now, the players know what’s being asked of them. 

My players are very professional and very committed. They’re committed outside – how they look after themselves and the actual work that they do as well.

So I’m quite fortunate. It’s not like I’ve got a rabble where I’ve got to say ‘we need more from you, I need you to go and do more work, I need you not to be going partying’. They’re not like that. 

They’re all really good individuals who look after themselves exceptionally well. 

At their own cost a lot of them as well. They have their own physios and some have their own one-to-one coaches, and they’ve all got their gym memberships. 

They will search stuff and they do things to a really high level.

So again, I’m very fortunate. It’s an actual joy to work with these players, they’re so self-sufficient in what they do.

Looking ahead to the rest of the season, is there anything you want to improve on as a team? 

At the moment, we’re realising we’re coming from a couple of seasons where we’re scoring four or five goals a game quite comfortably. 

We’re having to recognise that’s not going to be the case this year. Taking the chances we get when we get them, being more ruthless in front of goal. 

Sometimes when you have the luxury of always scoring plenty of goals and plenty of chances, you can be quite relaxed – another chance will come. It’s not that way in this league. 

Our first game against Torquay, it was a 30-odd yard strike from Megan that won the game.

We’re not pushing teams over and they’re not going to roll over either. They’re gonna stand up and go nose to nose with you. 

Whereas last season that would happen maybe against four or five teams, in this league everyone’s going head-to-head with you. Everyone’s got their own ambitions. 

That’s the difference really, making sure we’re taking our chances and tighten up at the back. 

What are the ambitions for the season? And are they different now you’ve started so well?

The ambition is always promotion. I’ve always said that even when I came in at the bottom of Tier 5.

The season will transpire how it transpires and depending on the results we might have to evaluate that. 

But while you’re in it, you’re in it to win it.

Our ambition, our target, is promotion. 

We definitely want to be competitive in the league, we want to be competitive in any game we play in, any league we play in, any competition we play in. That’s always an ambition and a want.

But the overriding objective is promotion. Whether you get it in season one, two, three, four. That is always the ambition we have. 

Photo credits: Fulham FC Women, Wycombe Wanderers Women FC