JACKIE EDWARDS (August 12, 1939 – May 17, 2025)
WARRINGTON are mourning Jackie Edwards, the silky scrum-half who was poached from under the noses of his hometown club Wigan and who scored 78 tries in 223 appearances in primrose and blue.
Both figures would have been higher had his career not been ended at 24 by a spinal injury.
His last match was the 5-0 Western Division Championship defeat at Whitehaven in January 1964, slightly more than nine years after at 16 years, 89 days, he became Warrington’s youngest player.
That club history-making debut was in the 33-9 victory over Wakefield Trinity in an ITV Television Trophy tie under the floodlights of Queens Park Rangers Football Club’s Loftus Road ground on November 9, 1955.
Warrington won that competition, although he didn’t feature in the 43-18 triumph over Leigh in the final back at QPR.
His son Shaun Edwards, the former Wigan and Great Britain star, took the first steps of his successful rugby union coaching career with Wasps in the early noughties when they played at Loftus Road.
Shaun was a proud onlooker when his father was inducted into the Warrington club hall of fame in 2013.
Jackie Edwards, who has died aged 85, enjoyed a trophy triumph in the 1959-60 Lancashire Cup, won 5-4 at the expense of St Helens at Central Park, in the shadow of which he played in children’s scratch matches on a piece of waste ground.
Nicknamed ‘Twinkle Toes’, he became a prolific try-scorer in Wigan schools rugby and captained Lancashire Schools, forming a highly-effective halfback combination with the simultaneously emerging Alex Murphy.
With Murphy already on their books, St Helens wanted Edwards as well, and Wigan were also keen, but Warrington won the race, with coach Ces Mountford completing the paperwork away from prying eyes in Blackpool on his 16th birthday on August 12, 1955.
Edwards received £350 (around £11,700 now) plus a further £500 (£16,300) after 20 appearances, but he was to recall the downside was that he was shunned by some in Wigan, where he continued to live.
He featured in the 1960-61 Championship Final against Leeds, who won 25-10 in front of 52,177 at Odsal, where the opposing line-up included centre Derek Hallas, who died earlier this month.
Edwards and Warrington also suffered disappointment in 1962-63, when Wakefield were 5-2 winners at Station Road in the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup.
He was involved in a key incident in the game. Warrington centre Joe Pickavance made a break and was running towards the Wakefield line supported by Edwards, who called out “Pick, Pick” to let his teammate know he was there for a pass as they approached Wakefield centre Neil Fox. However Pickavance misheard the shout as “kick, kick”, and did just that, with the chance going begging.
A week later, Warrington went to Wakefield for a league match and won 26-3, with Edwards scoring one try and halfback partner Bobby Greenough three.
Edwards played for a ‘Rest of League’ team against a Great Britain XIII at Knowsley Road in 1960-61 (a World Cup preparation game) and twice for Lancashire in 1962-63.
He was granted a testimonial season in 1966-67 which raised £750 (£17,400 now).
Edwards was deeply affected by the death of his other son Billy Joe, a Wigan youth player, aged 20 in a car accident in 2003.
A regular churchgoer and active member of the Warrington Players’ Association, his other sporting love was crown green bowling.
He had been a resident at the Windsor House Care Home in Standish, near Wigan, for the last few years of his life.
