Reflecting on her first season as head coach of Brentford Women, Carly Williams believes the foundations have been laid for "years of progress."

In the Bees’ first campaign in Tier 5, the group won 17 league games and reached two cup semi-finals, Williams adding that it was important to recognise how far the side has come since pre-season.

The west Londoners ended the year third in the London and South East Premier Division, six points adrift of champions Dartford, while scoring 70 goals, the best return in the league at the time of writing, thanks to 21 different goalscorers.

The side also kept 14 clean sheets across the campaign, an aspect of the game Williams has a strong focus on.

"From my perspective it’s been extremely positive. For our first-ever time in Tier 5, to secure a top-three finish and get into two semi-finals is a massive achievement that we can’t underestimate," said Williams.

"In a nutshell, I think it’s important to recognise where we’ve come from and how far we’ve come.

"For me as a previous defender, being hard to beat is massive. We’ve really celebrated those clean sheets and I think sometimes it’s easy to celebrate the goals we score, but we don’t recognise when we’ve kept a clean sheet or when we’ve made it difficult for an opponent.

"The amount of goalscorers we’ve got across the team means that we are a real threat and some of our opponents have fed back that they didn’t know which threat to prepare themselves for."

The beginning of the 2025/26 season brought with it a host of change at Brentford, as Williams replaced Karleigh Osborne in August 2025 and sweeping changes occurred within the playing squad.

Despite a new-look group and a short build-up to the season for Williams once she was appointed, the group started with a bang, winning 10 games in a row across all competitions.

The Bees' only league losses came to Saltdean United and Dartford, while they pushed on to make the semi-finals of the Capital Cup and the League Cup.

Williams said the coaching staff and players will reflect on the season and look to grow for the 2026/27 campaign.

"I’m immensely proud of the opportunity here at Brentford… there’s always learnings. That’s me as a person, I always want to learn, develop and grow," she said.

"It’s been a big change for the players in terms of a new coaching staff coming in and a new way of playing, so to adjust to that is a fantastic achievement.

"We will sit down and look at this season and review it, look at where we could’ve done better, but then also look at those successes and I think that’s just as important.

"We reflect in every huddle on where we’ve come from and where we’re going to and I think that progress has only just started.

"I think a lot of the foundation work has been done for hopefully what will be years of progress now."

A new layer to that foundation work was the club’s recent announcement that they are launching a girls’ academy ahead of next season, while home games will be moving to Uxbridge Football Club.

The academy, supported by Brentford FC Community Sports Trust staff, will initially include Under-14s and Under-16s squads competing in the Junior Premier League.

"With Brentford being a progressive club we’re always looking at how can we get ahead in the future but also set up the foundations to sustain the first team in terms of winning and moving through the pyramid," explained Williams.

"The academy is extremely exciting. With my background previously in the women’s elite academy environment, it’s exciting to think of what that could potentially give us in the future in terms of producing our own players.

"From our perspective, it’s definitely the way forward and I think it’s a really exciting time here at Brentford for us to build an academy how we want to build it and really set ourselves up well for the future."

The 2025/26 season saw Brentford welcome Katie Gilligan (Lewes), Saskia Reeves-Priestley (Dulwich Hamlet), Bo Taylor (Fulham) and Rebecca Teale (Lewes) on dual registrations, wuith the latter already making the move permanent.

"The dual registration players and how successful that has been, a really important part of that is the environment," explained Williams.

"It is the players, it is the staff, it is the infrastructure that’s been built here and I think across any other Tier 5 club, you wouldn’t have the structure that we have.

"A big part for me has also been building those relationships with those dual registration clubs. We’ve had a player in the PGA (Pro Game Academies) this year, we’ve had dual registrations from Tier 3 and Tier 4, so the fact that they’re trusting that we will look after their players is great.

"Equally, there’s some players in there that maybe weren’t playing and had fallen a little bit out of love with football and I think we’ve made them fall in love with it again.

"I think that’s testament to our environment. Creating a safe environment is really important to me and my personal values, so for players to come and give us that feedback, that makes me extremely proud."

This season saw Maddie Phillips have the captain's armband for the first time, Phillips and Williams establishing a strong partnership across the campaign.

"Maddie has grown so much as a person across the season and me and her have a really good rapport. We always check in around her leadership style and where she wants to develop.

"Pushing that side of it for herself has really evolved her as a person and a player. I’m very person centred, so I always want to grow and develop players on and off the pitch.

"Maddie’s done a fantastic job this season in terms of driving it on and off the pitch and even when she was injured, she was at every single session, every single game, and has been a really good person to lean on from a coach point of view."

The 2025/26 campaign came to an official close on Wednesday as the club hosted the annual awards evening, Asees Sangha claiming Player of the Year after her first season of women's football.

"Asees is a bit of an anomaly; you don’t see many 16-year-olds step into women’s first-team football and play as many games and as many minutes as she has done," said Williams.

"Her learning and development over this season has been massive. We never expected her to be the finished article by the end of the season and she still isn’t, she’s got a lot to grow, she’s balancing school and six A-levels, that’s a real challenge in itself.

"Her performances on the pitch, her willingness to never give up and even when games have been a bit more challenging or a bit more physical… she’s stepped up every time and she’s scored some key goals for us this season."