Jamie Edwards is currently the CEO of Shrewsbury Town in the Community but when he was eight he joined the Hereford United School of Excellence as it was then.
Later as a youngster he joined Aston Villa and then four years with Bristol City's youth team before spells with Newtown and Cwmbran.
“I had moved away from home at the age of 16 and had to grow up pretty quickly, especially being a country boy from Herefordshire,” he said.
Next he moved to Australia before visa problems meant a return to Hereford where he set up a football coaching business.
Then in 2008 a phone call from Hereford manager Graham Turner in which Edwards was offered a new post as community manager. The offer came on a Friday and Edwards started work on the following Monday. He took over from Adriano Girolami.
Turner spoke about the task.
Jamie Edwards, a local lad who was once on the club’s books at our Centre of Exellence before going to Aston Villa, is coming in as our new Football in the Community officer. It is an area of the club that we are very keen to expand, to get into more schools, to get more holiday clubs and to diversify into youth clubs, work with the police with problem kids and to continue with girls and disabled football.
“That was my journey into football in the community,” said Jamie.
He worked with Brian Williams, a former Shrewsbury player. But after Turner left Hereford to take up the manager's role at Shrewsbury both followed, Williams first, Edwards in 2014.
“It is strange how things go full circle,” said Jamie.
“I first attended a soccer school with Brian in Hereford and, eight years later, I was working with him again at Shrewsbury.
"My job is to manage the strategic and operational direction of Shrewsbury Town in the Community. I see it as a way of the football club giving something back to the community."
Read more at https://www.shrewsburytown.com/news/2022/march/staff-at-salop--jamie-edwards/