Amid the chaos of war-time football, the talents of Salford-born Jack Edwards were seemingly missed by the many nearby clubs and he was playing on the Nottinghamshire borders when he eventually attracted Nottingham Forest in 1944. By 1947, his form – as an inside-forward worth a few goals – was reputedly attracting bids in the order of £14,000 from Arsenal and Liverpool, two of the First Division’s top teams.

So Southampton were fortunate, indeed, to obtain his signature, two years later, for only £10,000, especially as West Brom, who had just pipped the Saints to promotion from Division II, were also interested. According to the club handbook,

Southampton had acquired “a real box of tricks.”

While Jack’s clever, ball-playing skills were guaranteed to go down well with the paying public, manager Cann never fixed on a stable combination of his fast forwards and his trickier ones. As he chopped and changed his formations, he moved Jack to outside-left. Yet Jack remained a first-teamer when fit and never once played for the Reserves until December 1951, shortly after Cann had gone “by mutual consent”. He finished the 1951-52 season, as the regular No.11 in the successful Football Combination Cup-side. Whereupon, he was loaned to non-league Kidderminster – until Second Division Notts County restored him to League football, in an exchange-deal that brought Alex Simpson from Meadow Lane to The Dell. He had a season playing non-league football with King’s Lynn before replacing Jack Bradley as manager of East Counties League team, Great Yarmouth.

After football, he returned to live in Lenton, Nottingham, where at the time of his untimely death in 1978 he was a self-employed salesman dealing with car warranties. Jack passed away in hospital two days after being involved in a “street incident” in Nottingham City Centre.