Championship winning Wolves midfielder Dave Edwards is next up to talk about life after football once he had hung up his boots.
How did you feel after retiring?
When I was going into my last season at Shrewsbury, I’d had a couple of nasty injuries and felt I was slowing down. I’d not been able to turn as quickly, and my game was based so much on athleticism when I was in my prime and losing that was a big factor to me thinking about when I was going to call it a day. In my final season, I had real problems with my ankle and I was playing through pain all the time, so I knew it was coming to an end. But the downside for me was that it was in the middle of Covid, so I didn’t really get a final season of playing in front of fans in the stadium. That was what made me carry on a few more years part-time with Bala Town, so I could have some closure from football. Being part-time I could manage my schedule a lot more, I was training just once a week and playing at the weekends and played almost every game for two seasons in the Welsh Premier League. If I’d have managed my training more when I was at Shrewsbury then I might have been able to extend my career, and I know Sam Ricketts and Steve Cotterill would have allowed me to have a few extra days to recover, but I just wanted to be playing and didn’t want to feel like I was cheating.
Did it take time for your life to adjust?
For the first six months, I found it very difficult. Mainly just arranging my diary as I was used for 18 years to being told what to do at what time, as it’s a very structured lifestyle as a footballer, and when that structure was taken away, I had to get used to planning everything myself. For the first few months, I found my headspace a bit frazzled because I found it difficult to organise everything, but now I have set days I do specific things on. We have a big calendar on the wall at home which my wife created and it has everything all of us are doing throughout the week, so I’m now very organised and structured – which helps me not to get too confused with where I should be on what days!
How did you replace football in your life?
I was quite well prepared for retirement really. When I was at Wolves, I knew I needed to start making plans for life after football, so I got into property. I was really interested in getting into it myself, but also setting up a business which I was able to start alongside football, helping clients build up their property portfolio – something I’m really passionate about. When I moved to Shrewsbury I was able to up the amount of hours I was spending doing that, just to make the transition a little bit easier. When I was at Wolves, I also set up a charity called the Little Rascals Foundation which supports children with disabilities, and that is going from strength to strength as well, so I’ve been able to spend more time helping with that. Then away from that I have a huge passion for golf, and I set up my own golf Youtube channel recently called ‘The Par 3’, so I’ve been able to be a bit more flexible in my schedule now rather than when I was playing and found time to play difficult as around games you had to make sure you were in the best shape possible, whereas now I can mould my calendar around when I’m on the golf course. That’s all keeping me very busy, but I also have a young family who I love spending time with, so there’s a good balance. I also do a bit of media work as well which has helped keep me in football, some co-commentary stuff which I was doing when I was playing, just to give me something else to look forward to when I retired. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on, so I don’t have too much time to miss football!
What did you miss most about football?
The matchday. Definitely. Training and everything around the dressing room is great, with the camaraderie you build with your teammates, but for me, the excitement of a matchday and the excitement of playing in front of thousands of fans, the feeling of joy when you win a big game, there’s nothing better. When you’re a footballer, the highs are amazing, but the lows are quite tough as well, but that’s what makes football such an amazing sport to play. Nothing will ever beat playing in front of a crowd and scoring a goal in a big moment of the game. That is something I will never be able to replace, and something I do really miss now when I turn up at Molineux to watch a game – I just wish I could be out there.
What are the parts of football you don’t miss?
Apart from the training, I don’t miss the rollercoaster of emotions. From week to week, whether you lose or win, when you are promoted one season and then relegated the next you could be on cloud nine one moment and then in the lowest of lows the next. The rollercoaster of emotions you go through as a footballer is not good for your mental health and it really does take its toll. No matter what anyone says, you do take your football home with you and it really does affect your home life. My wife would be devastated if I got injured in a game or lost a game of football, not only because of the injury or because of the result, but more because she knew how difficult it would be to deal with my mood when I got home. But I’m a lot more balanced now.
Do you still catch up with your teammates?
I still meet up with quite a few of my old Wolves teammates and our paths cross all the time around events and games, but the person I probably speak to the most out of everyone is Matt Jarvis. We were similar ages when we were at Wolves, with similar interests and I always got on really well with Jarvo, as well as Sam Vokes in particularly during my early years at Wolves, and we speak a lot.
If you could play again now, would you?
That’s tough. I’m going to say no because I loved my time in football so much and enjoyed the time that I played in. Even though I’m not long retired, I think the game has moved on so much recently, with all the politics surrounding football and issues with VAR, I don’t think I’d enjoy playing now as much. But if I got the opportunity to relive my career all over again, I’d definitely do that because being a professional footballer is the best job you can have.
What do you hope you’re remembered for at Wolves?
You want to be remembered as a good footballer, but more than anything with Wolves, because of the amount of time I was there, I want to be remembered as someone who gave their all to the football club. I hope I was someone the fans could see themselves in and if they would have been able to wear the gold shirt, they’d have been exactly the same as me in terms of their commitment to the football club on and off the field and the passion I played with. Wolves wasn’t my club when I first signed, I was a big Shrewsbury Town fan, but Wolves is such a huge part of my life with everything the club did for me and the relationship I built with staff, the players and the fans.
This article originally featured in Wolves' official 2023/24 matchday programme. Last season's programmes are still available to purchase online through retailers Curtis Sports.
