FourFourTwo September 2019 75
Left and below
The uni side prepare
to make history at
the Stade Municipal
“The club was heading towards the abyss – the university was going
to pull the funding,” explains Edwards. “We were in Division Three, the
bottom division. We were last of about 90 teams.
“I’d retired from football in 2006 and my plan was to go to university,
get a degree and become a PE teacher. I finished my undergraduate
degree in 2009, then the university asked if I’d take over the football
team. I hadn’t been involved with the team – at that stage, I hadn’t
even looked at what division they were in. I said, ‘No, not interested’.
Then they said, ‘We’ll pay your masters fees for you’.”
He set about transforming the culture of the side. “If I do something,
I dive in 100 per cent,” says the man now known as Dr Edwards, after
following his masters degree with a PhD. “The team had showhome
footballers – they had all the fittings, the nice boots and haircuts, but
functionally it didn’t work. They didn’t have a clue how to play football.
We slowly built a club through loyalty and hard work.”
Cardiff Met won three promotions in four years to reach the Welsh
Premier League in 2016. In their first top-flight season, they went into
a four-way play-off for a Europa League spot but lost the play-off final
to Bangor, suffering the same fate 12 months later at Cefn Druids.
Now it was third time lucky. They actually finished in the bottom half
of the table last season, 7th of 12 teams, to sneak into the play-offs.
But they won 3-2 at Caernarfon Town and then overcame Bala Town
on penalties to reach Europe for the first time – all while some of the
squad were still completing exams.
History had been made and the uni was inundated with messages,
Edwards even receiving a random email of congratulations from the
economics department at Moscow State University.
Everything has been been achieved with players drawn only from
the university. It’s a principle that Edwards insists upon, although there
are no FA rules to prevent him supplementing the line-up with signings
from elsewhere, as Cardiff Met’s female team have done en route to
qualification for the Women’s Champions League.
Edwards is now a lecturer in sports coaching at the university.
“That’s my main job,” he says – he’s just a Europa League manager
on the side. “Primarily the players are at the university to study, and
football is secondary. People have taken them lightly – they thought
they’d be a group of students turning up with skateboards under their
arms, but they’re respectful, disciplined and humble.
“We’re a sporting university that looks at sports science, in the most
professional era in the history of sport, so there shouldn’t be a surprise
that a university team is disciplined and professional.”
Not that they don’t act like typical students occasionally, when the
situation justifies it. “When we qualified for Europe, we got back home
late and went to a pub,” smiles 19-year-old Rhydian Morgan, as the
team start to drift outside to relax in the sunshine.
Players head to the students’ union bar after home matches, and
some even live together, but they decided to kibosh a planned group
holiday to Rotterdam once they qualified for the Europa League. Their
commitment certainly can’t be questioned: not only are they unpaid,
they actually pay to play, which might be a first for a team in European
competition. Each September, every player pays a £150 membership
fee to join the squad for the season.
“It’s the best £150 I’ve ever spent,” says Morgan, who’s on a sports
analysis course and has spent the past couple of weeks swotting up
on opponents Progres Niederkorn – analysis that officially counts as
a work placement as part of his studies. “When I paid the money last
year, I thought I might get on in the Welsh Premier League; now I’m
in Luxembourg for the Europa League. It’s nuts. I didn’t come to uni
to play in Europe. It’s the best university course ever.”
Morgan is an undergraduate but many players have been in the side
for several years – staying at uni to study PhDs, all on sport-related
courses. The squad certainly doesn’t lack intelligence.
“We’re different,” says captain Bradley Woolridge, former president
of the students’ union. “At times there’s resentment from other teams.
When we came through the leagues, people thought if they kicked us
and were physical with us, we wouldn’t want to know.”
Linchpin midfielder Charlie Corsby is in his 10th year with the team
and is now a lecturer. Team-mate Will Evans is currently on his course.
“I supervised Will’s dissertation – he did a good job!” laughs Corsby.
aybe the heat’s getting to FourFourTwo. It’s 35 degrees in Luxembourg,
the dehydration is kicking in and some sort of weird hallucination has
presented itself: a load of students holding a press conference in front
of a massive wasp.
We’re inside the Stade Municipal in the sleepy town of Differdange,
a couple of miles from the border with France. The wasp is livid and
peering over the students’ shoulders, staring FFT straight in the eye.
All while holding a football underneath its arm.
Thankfully, it isn’t real – not least because wasps don’t actually have
arms. It’s a giant club crest of host team Progres Niederkorn, and it’s
serving as the backdrop for a piece of history. The students are from
Cardiff Metropolitan University, and they’re about to become the first
British university team to play in the Europa League.
Sadly, that hasn’t attracted journalists in droves for the pre-match
media briefing, 24 hours ahead of the preliminary round first leg tie.
There are four representatives from the club – three players and boss
Christian Edwards – but only three from the press.
Two journalists from Luxembourg ask one question between them,
we chip in with a few of our own for politeness, and the conference
comes to a rather premature end.
FFT didn’t need to bombard the players with questions at the press
conference. We’d just spent the afternoon with the very same people
at their hotel in the centre of town – arriving in Luxembourg after an
epic nine-hour car journey from the UK, via a Dover-to-Calais ferry and
the motorways of France and Belgium.
Before we’d even reached the foyer at Differdange’s Gulliver Tower
Hotel, we bumped into Edwards and his staff outside. Understandably,
given the scorching temperatures, they were staying well away from
direct sunlight. “It’s not like this in Cardiff,” chuckled Edwards.
The team had arrived in Luxembourg two days before kick-off, after
a journey Edwards had been nervous about. The Dennis Bergkamp of
university football management, a fear of flying meant he’d originally
planned to drive to Luxembourg from Wales. Instead, he discovered
he’d already been booked on the team flight from Heathrow.
“If I can avoid flying, I will,” he tells FFT. “I had a bad experience
leaving Italy once, with a thunderstorm on take-off. This time I had
a glass of wine beforehand and it was OK, thank goodness.”
A former Swansea, Nottingham Forest and Bristol Rovers defender
who made one appearance for Wales in 1996, the flowing locks of
the 43-year-old’s playing days are gone, but a steely determination
remains. The remarkable story of Cardiff Metropolitan University could
not have happened without him.
The team were on the verge of folding when Edwards got involved
a decade ago. Cardiff Met were almost kicked out of the Welsh League,
but the Football Association of Wales handed them one last chance.
CARDIFF
MET UNI
M
