As part of the Shrewsbury Town in the Community Football and Education BTEC course, students were able to take part in a combat archery session with Olympic Archer Patrick Huston as part of a team building exercise.

Huston, who has represented and won medals for Great Britain at the World and European Championships, held a 90 minute session with the students which included target practice, combat skills, and some fun learning sessions to get the students up to speed.

Speaking of his work with Shrewsbury Town in the Community, Huston said, “The first thing I noticed about Shrewsbury Town in the Community is that everything here is done with a smile, everyone is really helpful, but the thing that really touched me was the “thank you” card in the post after recent work on their National Citizen Service (NCS) programme, and it just put an extra sparkle on working with the charity.”

“Having done the 2 events, it’s great to see the amount of young people coming along to these sessions, and Shrewsbury Town in the Community being a hub for the development of skills, the social interactions of people, and getting people to work outside their comfort zones on projects and activities that they may not normally want to face.

“Because of the work of Shrewsbury Town in the Community do through projects such as the BTEC courses, Foundation degree and the NCS, they offer young people the opportunity to gain skills for life and are a valuable asset to the local community.”

After spending the day with the BTEC in Football and Education students, Patrick added, “It’s great to see that everyone gets involved in these activities, no matter the gender, which sometimes can be problematic with other activities. Everyone loves shooting arrows at each other, it’s got a bit of a caveman-like aspect to it which people just seem to love.”

Jade Hibbert, Education and Inclusion Development Manager at Shrewsbury Town in the Community, said “Without people like Patrick who supports what we do here at Shrewsbury Town, the charity just wouldn’t be able to survive. Patrick is an outstanding individual, not just due to his sporting talent, but as a person he is a role model and a very inspiring individual”