ROB OF THE ROVERS
Profile on Tranmere Rovers’ bright young manager Rob Edwards
NOTHING epitomises Rob Edwards better than the moment against Leeds when a typically fullblooded challenge left him prostrate, bloodied and semiconscious.
“I went up for a challenge with one of the Leeds players,” said the centre-back, then playing for Exeter. “I headed the back of his head with my teeth and my front two teeth were pushed right back.
“I went to casualty and they pushed them back into place, then I had them pulled out again on the Monday. It was fun and games for a couple of days, but it’s no problem.”
Two weeks later, still nursing a shattered jaw and wearing a gumshield, Edwards returned to action.
“The doctor basically said I could either stop playing or wear a gumshield,” he explained. “So I wore the gumshield.”
No nonsense, hard as nails, sleeves up and on with the job. Little wonder the Tranmere boss is remembered fondly at every station of his 21-year career.
Those values were instilled at hometown club Carlisle where, alongside Jeff Thorpe, Tong Caig and Darren Edmondson, the teenage Edwards was given an old-school apprenticeship.
“We had all sorts of jobs,” recalls Thorpe. “Sweeping the terraces, collecting the balls from behind the goals, reseeding the pitch, cleaning the pigeon muck from the stands.
“We would work in the pie stalls, do all the washing, even wash the senior lads’ cars for a bit of extra money. Some lads go into the game now and straightaway they’re earning hundreds of pounds. They don’t learn to appreciate it like we did.”
Capped
Edwards made his debut as a teenager and, at 17 years and 250 days, remains the club’s youngest ever goalscorer. Incredibly, it was a penalty in a 1-0 win. “The older lads had seen me taking them,” he recalls. “And they said to the gaffer ‘He never misses’.”
A £135,000 move to Division Two Bristol City in 1991 saw Edwards spend eight years at Ashton Gate and win the first of four caps for Wales.
Then came five years at Preston, the first yielding a Second Division championship under David Moyes, followed by a sequence of play-off defeats. And in 2004, Edwards joined Blackpool, where he was immediately appointed skipper.
Yet by the time he signed for Conference side Exeter in 2006, Edwards was 33 and the general impression was that a hardy stalwart was gently winding down.
He had, after all, spent time on trial at Rochdale and Carlisle and suffered rejection at the hands of both.
But Grecians boss Tisdale wasn’t swayed. He knew Edwards was fit enough. Knew also that the defender wasn’t above scrapping for his life in Non-League. Most importantly of all, he knew his professionalism would rub off on a young squad plucked largely from the lower reaches of the Pyramid.
And it did, spectacularly so. In that first season, Edwards – by now playing in midfield – missed just two games as Exeter lost to Morecambe in an agonising play-off final.
Then, wearing the captain’s armband in 2007-08, he started and finished all 53 matches, fittingly scoring the Wembley winner as the Grecians beat Cambridge to return to the Football League.
“He wasn’t getting any younger,” said Matt Taylor, his defensive partner at Exeter. “But with each year he just seemed to get better and better. The way he read the game, his condition, knowing when to go and when to drop off. I learned so much.”
Over the next three years, he remained an integral part of Exeter’s rise to League One, and beyond that as coach to Paul Tisdale.
“It is hard to quantify how much of a contribution Rob has made,” said Tisdale when Edwards finally left the club to join Tranmere last year.
“But he has been my best signing by a distance. His performances on the pitch raised the bar when he arrived in 2006 and was a pivotal factor in our back-toback promotions.
“Yes he scored that goal at Wembley. But for me his largest contribution will be the way his professionalism and character helped to improve many Exeter City players over his eight years at the club, both on and off the pitch.”
Now Edwards has struck out alone, his task to rejuvenate a Tranmere side relegated from League One last year.
So far it has not gone well, but Grecians director Steve Perryman believes his old pal has what it takes.
“He is a very committed coach, very clever, and doesn’t take life too seriously in terms of getting too down or depressed,” he said. “Whatever happens it’ll be on to the next game. He’ll have a good future in the game.”