First students start Wolves-backed course

Goalkeeper Jake Smart is one of the new students enrolled on the course

A new football course has started in partnership between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Telford College.

The two-year Football and Education programme at the college offers students a BTEC level three sports qualification with the support of the Premier League club.

The students are also able to wear Wolves' famous "old gold" colours and represent Wolves Foundation in fixtures against other professional club foundation teams in the ECFL league.

Trials for the next academic year's course, which is for ages 16-19 are due to begin at the college's Wellington campus on 30 October.

In the classroom, the new students have been studying anatomy and physiology in the college's science labs, and begun writing their own fitness training programmes.

The course covers areas such as sports coaching, sports science and performance analysis.

They have also met the Wolves under-18 squad's strength and conditioning coach Fraser Russell, had an official "signing" session and photoshoot at Molineux, plus an invitation to watch the club's under-21s play against their counterparts from Real Madrid.

The students will have their performances monitored by cameras and GPS trackers.

This year's intake also started the season with a 9-0 victory over Mansfield.