Born in Hammersmith, Kimmy Edwards has always had a strong connection with south west London. He now has the pleasure of calling Jersey Road home as he helps influence the rebuild of Brentford’s Academy as Under-18s athletic performance coach.

Sport has always been something the 29-year-old has been “really, really invested in”, with his parents helping him sample a wide range of sports in his younger years.

However, once the likelihood of a professional career seemed over, Edwards' attention turned to finding a way he could continue his sporting journey.

“I hated the thought of letting go of sport because it was the source of so much pleasure and joy,” he begins.

“I had to find a way to stay as close to the bright lights and buzz that sport brings without actually competing and it’s to coach the people who are.

“The performance puzzle of sport has always been big to me, I’ve long been fascinated about what makes an athlete successful. What does that look like, feel like? What determines mastery in these different disciplines? What is its essence?”

Having competed in a variety of sports as a youngster, with a particular focus on combat sports and rugby, Edwards completed his undergraduate degree in strength and conditioning science, followed by an MSc in elite sport coaching and performance.

“Off the back of that, I was quite fortunate to go and work at different environments, elite rugby clubs, elite organisations in track and field, and just really getting a full flavour of what high performance looked like and felt like on a day-to-day basis,” he says.

“I worked in rugby for a while. My most recent role was at London Irish, alongside coaching with Areté Performance. We were based at the Gtech, which we obviously shared with Brentford.

“Sadly, London Irish ceased to exist. I got another role at a Premiership football club and whilst I was there the job at Brentford was advertised.

“I’ve always had a strong affinity to Brentford, and it means so much from a location perspective. Funnily enough when I applied for the role at Brentford, I was living on the old grounds of Griffin Park.”

Alongside U18s head coach Lydia Bedford, Jon-Paul Pittman and the rest of the coaching and medical staff, Edwards is playing a pivotal role in shaping the club’s academy.

He mentions that with players under the age of 18, his role entails a mix of guiding the players through their day-to-day quest to improve yet allowing them to experience things on their own and figure out their own solutions.

“There are certain things that are non-negotiable, based on scientific principles, their age, mixed with my own professional experience, but we need to appreciate the blend between the science and the art and creativity,” says Edwards.

“In engineering, you give people solutions, ‘this is how it’s been done in the past, this is what we’ve seen work’ and that works brilliantly in that environment, whereas in the world of art, that doesn’t happen as much, you don’t say ‘use this brush like this’, people find their own form of self-expression.

“With an 18-year-old it’s that same thing, we’ve got to guide them, we’ve got to show them options, we’ve got to show them what success looks like, but ultimately we’ve got to provide them as many opportunities and expose them to as many different scenarios as possible so that they can start to understand what works and what doesn’t work for them.”

Coming in to tackle the rebuild of a club academy could be a daunting one, but when it comes to performance, Edwards and the medical team are free to steer away from the conventional.

“It’s been great, even from the early conversations I’ve had with Ben Ryan upon starting, he reiterates that I’ve got the license to challenge the status quo,” he reveals.

“Along the way we may make the odd mistake but ultimately, it’s a case of trying to find out what works and consistently learning from those experiences.

“Working within this team, it’s the shared understanding that we’ve got to keep in mind that the player always exists within that technical, tactical and physical realm and that the psychological wraps around that as well.

“If you’re only good at one of those elements, you’re never going to become the next best thing, the physical interacts with the technical, which interacts with the tactical, which interacts with the psychological, you’ve got to spend time developing all of those aspects.”

Featuring in the men's first team matchday programme for their clash with Liverpool was especially special for Edwards and his family as his father Mervyn is a Reds fan.

“We grew up watching Liverpool together and there’s fond memories of me being on the sofa, tucked up with my old man watching their games,” he recalls.

“He took me to go see the FA Cup final in 2003, that was an unreal experience.

“That’s another reason why sport will always be so fond to me, it’s that feeling of pride for yourself, your mother and father, for your coaches and team-mates. Everyone who’s been through the highs and lows alongside you, it’s just such an emotional thing. They say sport is life and death but they’re wrong - it’s much more than that.”