Sideline Sid Sports correspondant & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

It must be Murphy's law that sees a complete absence of Western Bay sporting autobiographies; and then we get two in as many months. Following hot on the heels of Denny Enright's ‘Born to be a Fighter', local football legendary coach Eddie Edge has penned and released ‘Life on the Edge'.

A coaching advertisement in a local English paper in 1983, resulted in what Eddie calls his 30-year life sentence beginning. The Mount Maunganiui Football Club call for a coach, started a run for the club that took the top team from earning promotion to the Northern League Division 2 in 1983 to losing the Holy Grail of a National League title by a solitary goal differential six years later.

The support of the club, with a desire to play in the National League, along with the driving passion of Mount Club president Dave Cook, were a significant contribution to Eddie Edge's coaching success with Mount Maunganui.

Selection for the England Amateur team against Cambridge and Oxford Universities in 1959, was among the highlight of Edge's playing career, before turning to the coaching ranks. Football became interspersed with military duty, when he signed up for the army in 1961.

On his discharge from the army 10 years later, Eddie coached football around Telford, which is a satellite town outside of Birmingham, before embarking on a coaching contract on the other side of the world in 1983.

So began a seven-year journey at Mount Maunganui that ended when Eddie chose to walk away from the Mount Club in the middle of the 1990 season. Three successive Northern League titles, from 1984, saw Mount Maunganui claim a berth in the National League in the 1987 season. In the 1986 season the team won the Northern Premier League title and failed by a whisker to win the time-honoured Chatham Cup, played as a home and away final fixture for the first time.

Further success came with Kawerau Town and an ill-fated venture to coach Wellington United, while still living in the Bay of Plenty, before coaching duties with Waikato United and a final stint at the top level with Mount Maunganui in 1995 and 1996.

However, what makes the book a grand read, is Eddie Edge's own words of his triumphs and defeats and battles with authority, throughout his Kiwi coaching career. Controversy was never far behind Eddie Edge; and he details a number of his battles with both players and administrators alike.

Some gems in the book include: 'Being informed by the chairman at the conclusion of the 1992 season that his services were not being retained after one year of service at Wellington United. Eddies comment was: 'I'm glad I didn't buy a suit then”.

Umbrellas being belted over the head of players and coaches are part of sporting folklore. In the 1991 season when Eddie took Kawerau Town to promotion in the Northern League, he happened to see a women's game. In the local paper his football column commented 'women should stick to netball, leaving the football to men”. At the following weekend's match, a woman whacked him over the head and then berated him, leaving Eddie speechless.

We will leave the final word to Eddie's wife Dolores, from the book: 'Eddie, you had the National League and Chatham Cup winning opportunities for your players, only for you to shoot yourself in the foot” – many will be saying ‘hear hear'.