Shrewsbury Town players visited Severndale Specialist Academy in Shrewsbury yesterday in the build-up to tonight’s Checkatrade Trophy Quarter-Final against Oldham Athletic.

The trophy itself was in attendance and Abu Ogogo, Ben Godfrey and Junior Brown met students and answered questions.

The event was organised by the EFL in cooperation with Shrewsbury Town in the Community and Town skipper Abu Ogogo admitted that it was a great day.

“It’s been very good”, Abu said.

“It’s obviously enjoyable coming out into the community, meeting the kids and answering the questions. I think we should do this more often. The boys enjoy doing it and it’s good to put a smile on the kids’ faces.”

The event was the first time that the players had visited the Special School, which caters for the educational needs of children and young people with the complete range of abilities from the ages of 2 to 19, and Severndale Principal Sabrina Hobbs was delighted to welcome Shrewsbury Town to the school.

“It’s been a fantastic afternoon”, Sabrina said.

“The students have clearly loved every second of it and I was really impressed with the questions that they had to ask.

“It would be fantastic to see more visits in the future because it was clear to see that the students were very motivated and inspired by some very successful players coming into the school to talk to them about motivation and resilience, so that was lovely to see.

“We are part of the community and as the special school for Shropshire it was great to have the trophy come and the media attention.”

Community Sports Manager, John Rix, helped organise the event for Shrewsbury Town in the Community and he feels the bond between Severndale and Shrewsbury Town is an important one.

“It’s been fantastic”, said John.

“The children have been amazing. They were prepped with some really good questions for the players who answered really frankly and honestly with their answers. It was really nice to have the trophy here as well and it was a really special event for the children here.

“Severndale is a really important school for us to work with. They’ve got some wonderful children and we work quite closely with them on a number of projects, so it was really nice to put this event on for them.”