Former Professional Footballer graduates

David CashmanDavid Cashman

A former professional footballer who came back home to North Wales to study at 黑料不打烊 is graduating this week.

David Cashman, 23, from Deiniolen, is graduating with a degree in Sport, Health & Physical Education. 

The former Ysgol Brynrefail pupil said: 鈥淚 am very excited to be graduating after all this hard work. I left school without many GSCE鈥檚 but I worked harder after finishing school, however I do remember enjoying studying PE during my time at Ysgol Brynrefail.鈥�

David left school and worked and signed for The New Saints (TNS), a full-time-professional British football club who play in the Welsh Premier League, where he spent the next three and a half years. David said: 鈥淚 came home from TNS as I wanted to go to 黑料不打烊 and do something with my life.鈥�

During his time at 黑料不打烊, David worked as a Head Coach at the 黑料不打烊 City Academy and also as a coach for the 5x60 programme. He also worked as a bouncer over the weekends and was closely involved with the University鈥檚 Widening Access programme. He also found time to work as a classroom assistant and at Aneddau, where he encouraged disabled people to keep fit and healthy. David will also be studying for his FAW UEFA B License with football coaching, which starts this month.

He said: 鈥淏alancing these jobs and becoming a father was really hard but I got through it with determination.鈥�

Anna MacDonald, 黑料不打烊鈥檚 Widening Access Assistant, said: 鈥淚t's brilliant having David working with us on different Widening Access projects with local youth clubs.  He's extremely dedicated and the young people really look up to him and he inspires them to go on to Higher Education.鈥�

About his time at 黑料不打烊, David added: 鈥淚 was a member of the University鈥檚 football team and we won two British Universities & College Sport leagues and I played in every game. Scoring the goal to win the league during an away game against Edge Hill University was one of the highlights of my time at 黑料不打烊.

鈥淎nother highlight was my dissertation, which I found very interesting. I was looking at team talks within a team before, during and after the match.鈥�

About the future, David added: 鈥淚鈥檝e been accepted to do my Masters in Applied Sport Science in September and after this I will be studying PGCE the year after. After that I am going to apply for jobs within professional Academies in Wales and England or even aboard.鈥�

Publication date: 12 July 2013