Some people in football make headlines; others work behind the scenes to make them happen. Pete Edwards, Nottingham Forest’s head of performance in the era when Stan Collymore and Bryan Roy terrorised the Premier League, belongs in the second category.
As Nuno Espírito Santo’s side challenge for European qualification, evoking the club’s glory days, it is hard to see them matching the Forest team of three decades ago who finished third – and that, straight after promotion. The manager, Frank Clark, revived the club after Brian Clough’s departure, but according to many in that 1994-95 squad, Edwards was the catalyst for their success.
Arsène Wenger is perceived by some as the trailblazer who introduced continental European methods in England: his emphasis on nutrition and improved training techniques at Arsenal, from 1996, is often seen as having raised the bar.
But Edwards – recruited by Clark before Forest’s 1993-94 promotion season – was already on the case. After beginning his top-flight career at Arsenal, Edwards visited Lazio and Juventus during the 1990s, when Serie A was the world’s strongest league.
He used personalised training plans, individual diets and double sessions in English football when many players were more accustomed to spending afternoons in the pub or playing golf.
While augmenting his knowledge by learning from fellow coaches on those trips to Italy, including time with Gian Piero Ventrone at Juve in 1995, Edwards was given “carte blanche” by Clark, meticulously planning the squad’s preparation and carefully managing the players’ workload to minimise injuries. Fitness, flexibility and strength work were tailored to complement on-pitch training.
“There was a lot of trust put in me,” says Edwards, whose job title at Forest was head of performance and fitness. They finished behind Manchester United and the champions, Blackburn, in that 1994-95 season. The team’s fluent counterattacking brought some memorable wins: 2-1 at Old Trafford, 4-1 at White Hart Lane, 7-1 at Hillsborough.
Several years before, a chance meeting with the Arsenal assistant Steve Burtenshaw led Edwards to visit Highbury to watch a training session. But George Graham, it emerged, had something different in mind after being impressed by the conditioning of Edwards’ Kingsbury Town players during a friendly between the sides.
“It was the team of Tony Adams, Steve Bould, Lee Dixon,” says Edwards. “I threw on a tracksuit, and Graham said: ‘Don’t you do this sort of stuff?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, take the team.’”
Edwards was plunged in at the deep end with the best side in the country but the players responded to his methods, and Graham asked him to come in every week. Arsenal won the title. “I decided I needed to look in more depth at training, preparation and diet,” he says. “That’s what led me to Italy.”
A role at Leyton Orient later materialised where Edwards would meet his future Forest boss. Orient climbed the league after “proper on-pitch warmups” and modular, timed training sessions were introduced, before Clark took the job in Nottingham and asked his fitness expert to follow.
They felt the players inherited from Clough, whose training largely revolved around five-a-sides, were not in optimal condition. “‘It will take time,’ Frank told me,” Edwards says. “‘These players are used to getting fit after Christmas.’”
The test from Graham had been passed and another awaited in Nottingham. Edwards’ own fitness – with a willingness and capacity to practise what he preached – would soon prove invaluable.
“I was faced with Roy Keane, Stuart Pearce and Nigel Clough: three legends,” Edwards says of his first training session. “‘Let me explain what we’re going to do,’” I told the players.” Typically, the formidable Keane was reluctant to be ordered around by the new recruit. “He said: ‘Fair enough. You do it, and we’ll do it.’ ‘Let’s go,’ I said. I did the session with them, a hard session, and after that the players did what I wanted.”
Keane was soon sold to Manchester United, Clough departed for Liverpool, but Pearce remained and would be a crucial ally. Poor results early in 1993-94 put Clark under increasing pressure to get Forest straight back up. The manager warned Edwards there had been “a few moans” about the new regime, and called a meeting for players to voice their concerns.
“I’m thinking: ‘Jesus, this could be the end,’” Edwards says. “The players were sitting there eating fish and chips. Frank banged on the table and said: ‘What’s anybody got to say?’ One player stands up, points at me and says: ‘Since he’s been here I’ve not been getting home until three or four in the afternoon. I’m knackered.’ Another player stands up: ‘I haven’t seen my missus.’ Woany [Ian Woan] says: ‘Gaffer, we’re doing so much hard work.’
“Now I’m sweating. Pearce stands up. England captain, God knows how many caps. I thought: ‘I’m dead.’ ‘Gaffer, I’ve got to say, since Pete’s been here I feel better,’ he said. ‘I think he goes a bit OTT sometimes but I’m all for it.’ ‘That’s the end of the meeting,’ Frank said. ‘This is how we’re going to train so get used to it.’ After that, it turned.”
It was a special group, reflected in results and on the training pitch. “Lars Bohinen was a fantastic trainer,” says Edwards. “So was Alfie Haaland, Erling’s dad. But everyone is different. Pearce and Steve Stone could run for fun. Others struggled – Stan was one – but he says it was the fittest he got in his career. He could be difficult, but he trusted me.”
Hardest to convince, Edwards says, were Forest’s other coaches: Archie Gemmill, “club legend and Scotland legend”, and Liam O’Kane, who had played with George Best. “You couldn’t fool people like that. But they saw it was working.”
Edwards persuaded Clark to install a rudimentary gym at the City Ground – before, individual training with players such as Roy took place in public, often disrupted by autograph-hunting fans. Stretching sessions and ice baths, previously unheard of, were part of the programme. Edwards, who lived in Hertfordshire, drove 240 miles a day. “I was never late,” he says. “My dad was a regimental sergeant major.”
In 1995-96 a strong Uefa Cup run ended in defeat by Bayern Munich. After Clark’s departure in 1996, Edwards was occasionally pressed into media duty by the new player-manager Pearce. “I was sitting next to Ruud Gullit one week and Alex Ferguson the next. I was in awe.”
From accidentally running Forest’s squad up a ski slope on a pre-season stay in Italy – “we came back down in a cable car” – to lunch with Paul Gascoigne in Rome and getting a souvenir shirt from Alessandro Del Piero at Juventus, Edwards shares a stream of anecdotes. He also remains active in the game with a role for Crystal Palace’s academy, among other coaching work.
He does not accept the modern game is more demanding on players’ bodies and believes the volume of injuries in the top flight is attributable to over-training. “The physical demands are more or less the same,” Edwards says. “I believe injuries come from training. They [coaches] have got to know when to stop, when to rest players. It’s all about planning.”
Within football, and particularly within that Forest squad, his profound impact is recognised. Collymore reverentially calls him “the Godfather”. Wenger’s legacy is clear, but his Arsenal reign continued an evolution of the English game that had already begun.
