She Kicks Careers: Edwards Steps Up As An Army Footballer (Demi Edwards)

Two pages from the She Kicks Careers strand on combining football with a life in the Armed Forces. Demi Edwards is a QPR forward, a Lance Corporal in the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps and until recently was working around thirty hours a week in A&E at Frimley Park. Growing up in Hereford she was in the Wales youth set-up, but after school the distance from clubs and academies closed her options and her family could not fund the alternative, so she followed her sister into the Army on the reasoning that she could play football and be paid. She left during training, regretted it within a fortnight and reapplied, rejoining in 2015; she has since represented the Army and UK Armed Forces, including against Chelsea’s development team. She is clear-eyed in her advice: a talented sixteen-year-old with a real chance should take it, because watching contemporaries reach the Championship and WSL is her own regret.