SCHOOLED by Bobby Moore, signed by Terry Venables and starring alongside Gazza, Lineker and Ginola.
Justin Edinburgh always kept good company and perhaps the biggest tribute you can pay to him is, despite his humble beginnings, he never looked out of place when among football’s true greats.
Only last weekend he was in the group of Tottenham legends who travelled to Madrid to watch the club’s Champions League final defeat by Liverpool.
Those who were with him and saw him insist he looked in good shape. They, like the rest of football, can scarcely believe a week later he is now dead at the age of just 49 after suffering a cardiac arrest on Monday.
He leaves behind wife Kerri, son Charlie and daughter Cydnie.
Former full-back Edinburgh had every reason to look cheerful in Spain after a successful season as manager of Leyton Orient in which he had guided the East End club back into the Football League after winning the National League title.
He also led them to the FA Trophy final where they were beaten by AFC Fylde.
It was perhaps fitting his last-ever match was at Wembley as the stadium in its old guise was the scene of his two greatest moments as a player as he won both domestic cups with Spurs.
No bad for the son of a pub landlord whose route to the top was via the traditional route when Southend, then in the old Fourth Division, spotted him playing for a local Sunday side and took him on as a youth player.
Edinburgh once recalled: “We used to train on public pitches. Bobby Moore was manager when I first went there — the World Cup-winning captain. He’d be climbing over fences to see if we could get into a park to train, and we’d be chased off.”
After helping the Shrimpers gain promotion, Edinburgh ended up at Tottenham in 1990 when Venables was boss. He said: “I’d been on loan at Spurs and was going to sign earlier in 1990, but because of the financial restraints I had to go back to Southend. Terry assured me I’d done everything right and was going to sign, but summer came and I was still waiting for the phone call.
“It seemed like it would never ring but eventually it did and there was no looking back.”
At the age of just 20, Edinburgh found himself in the Spurs dressing room alongside the likes of Gary Lineker, Paul Gascoigne, Gary Mabbutt and Paul Stewart.
But the new boy was not fazed and after breaking into the first team he played a key role in their triumphant FA Cup run of 1991 when they beat Nottingham Forest 2-1 in the final.
That was not to be Edinburgh’s last Wembley medal as he played in Spurs’ 1-0 win over Leicester in the 1999 League Cup final — when he became the last man to get sent off at the old stadium after a bust-up with Robbie Savage.
The fiery full-back watched Allan Nielsen’s late winner on a TV in the tunnel before he dodged past security to collect his medal.
He later joined Portsmouth and Billericay before becoming a player-boss at the Essex minnows.
He then cut his teeth in management at non-league outposts Fisher, Grays and Rushden before helping to guide Newport back to the EFL.
Spells in charge of Gillingham and Northampton followed before he took over at Leyton Orient in November 2017.
Where his journey could have ended we will sadly never know.
