Ryan Marc Edwards (born 17 November 1993) is an Australian professional football player who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for Spanish club

SD Amorebieta Sociedad Deportiva Amorebieta is a Spanish football team based in Amorebieta-Etxano, in the Basque Country. Founded in 1925, it currently plays in Primera División RFEF – Group 2, holding home games at '' Campo Municipal de Urritxe'', which s ...

. Born in Singapore, Edwards played youth soccer at the

Australian Institute of Sport The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is a high performance sports training institution in Australia. The Institute's headquarters were opened in 1981 and are situated in the northern suburb of Bruce, Canberra. The AIS is a division of the ...

and for

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

before making his professional debut for

Perth Glory Perth Glory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Perth, Western Australia. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues. Founded in 19 ...

on loan in 2013. In 2015, Edwards left Reading to join

Scottish Premiership The Scottish Premiership, known as the cinch Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is the top division of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottish ...

club

Partick Thistle Partick Thistle Football Club are a professional association football, football club from Glasgow, Scotland. Despite their name, the club are based at Firhill Stadium in the Maryhill area of the city, and have not played in Partick since 1908. ...

. Edwards left Thistle after they were relegated in 2018, and signed for Hearts. He has represented Australia at under-20 and under-23 level. In March 2017 Edwards was called up to the senior Australian national team.

Early life

Edwards was born in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Despite having been in the country for around 10 days after his birth, Edwards was called up for

national service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The l ...

for Singapore on his 18th birthday. He was able to wait until age 21 and have his citizenship renounced, therefore avoiding conscription. His father,

Alistair Alistair is a masculine given name. It is an Anglicised form of the Scottish Gaelic '' Alasdair''. The latter is most likely a Scottish Gaelic variant of the Norman French Alexandre or Latin Alexander, which was incorporated into English in the s ...

, is a former Australian international and his mother is a Singaporean national, and his older brother Cameron is also a professional footballer.

Club career

Reading

On 29 April 2011, it was announced he had signed with

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

side

along with his older brother Cameron.

Perth Glory (loan)

On 16 July 2013, Edwards left Reading on a season long loan to

, then managed by his father

and featuring his brother Cameron. Edwards made his debut for Perth Glory on 13 October 2013 in their first game of the 2013–14 season, a 3–1 away defeat to

Adelaide United Adelaide United Football Club is a professional Association Football, soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. The club participates in the A-League Men under North American professional sports league organization#Systems ar ...

2014–15 season

In April 2015, Edwards announced he'd been informed by Reading that they would not be renewing his contract, which expired that summer, with his release from Reading confirmed on 21 May.

Partick Thistle

Following his release from Reading, Edwards' went on trial with

Crawley Town Crawley Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Crawley, West Sussex, England. The club was founded as Crawley Football Club in 1896, changed its name to Crawley Town Football Club in 1958. The team co ...

. and trained with

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

in the lead up to Australia U-23's matches in September 2015. On 24 September 2015, Edwards signed a one-year contract with

side

. Edwards made his Partick Thistle debut in a 3–0 win over Dundee United coming on as a substitute Edwards scored his first goal for

in a 2–1 victory against

Hamilton Academical Hamilton Academical Football Club, often known as Hamilton Accies, or The Accies, is a Scottish association football, football club from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Hamilton, South Lanarkshire who currently compete in the Scottish Championshi ...

New Douglas Park New Douglas Park, currently known as the ZLX Stadium for sponsorship purposes, is a football stadium in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, which serves as the home of Scottish Championship side Hamilton Academical and Scottish League One sid ...

on 19 March 2016. On 1 April 2016, Edwards extended his contract with Partick Thistle, until the end of the 2016–17 season. Edwards contract was again extended, this time until the end of the 2017/18 season, on 17 November 2016, after the midfielder had triggered an extension. On 30 June 2016 Edwards signed a contract extension to stay at

until summer 2020. Thistle were relegated via the playoffs at the end of the 2017/18 season. Following that relegation, Edwards invoked a clause in his contract which allowed him to leave Thistle immediately.

Heart of Midlothian

On 6 June 2018, Edwards signed a two-year contract with Hearts. At the end of August 2018, Edwards was loaned to St Mirren. Ryan Edwards returned to Hearts in January 2019 after stating his desire to return and play for the club. Edwards made his debut in the Edinburgh Derby against Hibernian, helping them to a 1-1 draw. He made his first start the following week against Kilmarnock. Edwards scored in the 2019 Scottish Cup Final to give Hearts the lead in an eventual 2–1 defeat to Celtic.

Busan IPark

On 5 July 2021, Edwards joined

Busan IPark Busan IPark ( ko, 부산 아이파크) is a South Korean professional football club based in Busan that competes in K League 2, the second tier of the South Korean football pyramid. Its current home ground is Busan Gudeok Stadium. The club was o ...

K League 2 The K League 2 (Hangul: K리그2) is the men's second-highest division of the South Korean football league system. It is contested between thirteen professional clubs, and operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the K League 1. Hi ...

Amorebieta

On 7 March 2023, Edwards signed for

Primera Federación The Primera Federación, formerly known as Primera División RFEF, is the third tier of the Spanish football league system beginning with the 2021–22 season. It is administered by the Royal Spanish Football Federation. It is below the top t ...

club

. He featured in 13 league matches as the club achieved promotion to

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...

International career

Edwards has captained the

Australia national under-20 association football team The Australia national under-20 soccer team, known colloquially as the Young Socceroos, represents Australia in international under-20 soccer. The team is controlled by the governing body for soccer in Australia, Football Australia (FA), whi ...

, and was a member of the Australian squad that went to the

2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the nineteenth edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, since its inception in 1977 as the FIFA World Youth Championship. It ran from 21 June to 13 July 2013. At the FIFA Executive Meeting in Zürich on 3 March 2011, ...

. He was part of the U-23 squad that took part in the

2013 AFC U-22 Championship The 2013 AFC U-22 Championship (also known as the 2013 AFC U-22 Asian Cup) was the first edition of the AFC U-22 Championship. The hosting rights for the tournament was awarded to Oman. It was set to take place between 23 June and 7 July 2013 but ...

in Oman, and the

2016 AFC U-23 Championship The 2016 AFC U-23 Championship (also known as the 2016 AFC U-23 Asian Cup) was the second edition of the AFC U-23 Championship, the biennial international age-restricted football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) fo ...

in Qatar. In March 2017 Edwards was called up to the senior Australian national team.

Career statistics

Honours

Heart of Midlothian *

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,2018–19 Individual *

Burton Albion Burton Albion Football Club is a professional association football club in the town of Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England. The team compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club moved its home groun ...

Player of the Year:

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, Ryan 1993 births Living people Australian men's soccer players Australian expatriate sportspeople in England Australia men's youth international soccer players Australian people of Singaporean descent Sportsmen from New South Wales Men's association football midfielders Australian Institute of Sport soccer players Reading F.C. players Perth Glory FC players Partick Thistle F.C. players English Football League players A-League Men players Scottish Professional Football League players Soccer players from Sydney Heart of Midlothian F.C. players St Mirren F.C. players Burton Albion F.C. players Segunda División players Primera Federación players SD Amorebieta footballers Australian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Expatriate men's footballers in Spain