The man they call the ‘Sheriff’ in the Swedish city of Ostersund is no gun-wielding, hat-wearing arbiter of justice. He is instead a 24-year-old footballer called Curtis Edwards, a midfielder from Teesside who barely speaks the language but has still become a vital member of the all-singing, all-dancing Ostersunds FK side that welcomes Arsenal to the ‘Winter City’ on Thursday.

“When I joined the club, one of the fans typed my name into Google,” Edwards says. The first result was an American photographer named Edward Sheriff Curtis. “There was a picture of him with a beard and a hat, so they edited my face onto it, printed a big flag out and started calling me the Sheriff.”

If the origin of the nickname seems unusual, it is nothing compared to a journey that has taken Edwards from pampered teenager to academy dropout, and then from construction sites in rainy England to European glamour ties in snowy Sweden. It is a tale of expectation and disappointment, hope and redemption. And it is also, Edwards now knows, the story of a boy who just needed time to grow up.

“I was at Middlesbrough for a long time, from around the age of 12 until I was 19,” he says. “We got everything from a young age. I always knew I was a good player, and I was getting rewards from a young age, too. In my head, I thought I was good, so I didn’t need to give 100 per cent. It was immaturity.”