'Proud' Edwards will relish taking charge of Luton at his 'brilliant' former club Aston Villa

Luton boss Rob Edwards is looking forward to what will be an extremely proud day for him when he takes his Hatters side to former club Aston Villa tomorrow.

The Town chief spent over a decade at Villa Park as a youngster, coming through the ranks at the Villains and going on to make his professional debut in the Premier League when aged just 20, as Aston Villa beat Middlesbrough 1-0 back on December 28, 2002.

He featured another eight times for Villa, as it was there where he also earned a first cap for Wales too, replacing Craig Bellamy in a 4-0 Euro qualifying win over Azerbaijan.

Injury unfortunately struck though, Edwards he had loan spells at Crystal Palace and Derby County, before eventually leaving to join Wolves for £150,000 in 2004.

On heading back to the club where it all started, he said: “It will be a nice one, a really proud moment for me on a personal, selfish point of view.

"It was a club I spent about 11 years at, spent most of my life at from a 10-year-old boy up until leaving for Wolves.

"I made my Premier League debut there and had some special moments there.

"It’s a club that’s very close to my heart, so it will be a really special moment going back.

"It’s a brilliant football club, and it’s good to see them doing so well now.

"All I want to do is win the game, but it will be nice, a really proud moment.”.”

When Edwards was at Villa Park, he was in a side that contained the likes of Dion Dublin, Lee Hendrie, Darius Vassell and Steve Staunton, but the then centre half was part of a younger generation coming through who all went on to have fine careers.

He continued: “There was a lot of, not household names, but big players, it’s a big football club.

“There were quite a few of us young players that came through at a similar sort of time.

"Gareth Barry was a year or two above that went on and had a fabulous career, but there was a lot who went on to become full internationals, good Premier League players.

"Steven Davis, Gary Cahill, Liam Ridgewell, loads, too many to mention around that time.

"It was a good club to be at, it was a club that gave young players opportunities and it’s doing that now.

"People like Jacob Ramsay and others that are coming through, they’ve got some really good young players coming through again.”

Edwards didn’t have any qualms about moving on when his time was up at Villa, going on to spend four years at Molineux, before heading to Blackpool where he made his Villa Park return for an opposing side, playing 90 minutes as the Tangerines were beaten 3-2 in November 2010.

He added: “I managed to get back to the Premier League with Blackpool, I didn’t play much but I played at Villa Park in that famous game when Ian Holloway made loads of changes and got in trouble for that.

"I was one of the changes he made as I wasn’t in the team, that was a nice moment as well.

"Leaving was the right thing at the right time.

"I wasn’t going to feature after my injury, I’d had a year out and gone on loan a couple of times, so I was excited about the move to Wolves.

"It was the right thing for me and the football club at the time, so it didn’t feel like a big, big change.

"But I’ll be very, very proud going out, a lot of my family, my wife’s side, they’re from Birmingham, they support Villa, so it’ll be a nice one for the family.”