Hello, and welcome to the ShowGame’s university coverage for 2017/18! Here is a recap of the overall University Ultimate structure, and a guide to what we’ll be covering this year.
Firstly, the actual titles teams will be fighting for: there are six titles – Men’s, Women’s and Mixed in Indoors and Outdoors. These titles are all ultimately decided at a big tournament to crown the overall winner. We’ll be covering those final tournaments as we go. The Men’s and Women’s tournaments are also officiated by BUCS (the British Universities and College Sports overseeing committee). Because of this, there is likely extra funding on the line for a lot of teams vying for these titles, as well as pride and fame.
The actual qualifying route varies quite a lot across divisions, though:
|
Division |
Indoors/ |
Format |
Regional Split |
Articles for regionals? |
Last Year’s Top 3 |
|
Mens |
Indoors |
Regionals |
Scotland, North East & North West, West and West Midlands, Yorkshire and East Midlands, South East, East & London, West |
No (too close to start of outdoor BUCS leagues) |
St. Andrews, Sussex, Dundee |
|
Womens |
Indoors |
Regionals |
Scotland, North, East, West |
Yes |
Chichester, Kings, Birmingham |
|
Mixed |
Indoors |
Regionals |
Scotland, North East & North West, West and West Midlands, Yorkshire and East Midlands, South East, East & London, West |
No |
Glasgow, Leeds, Birmingham |
|
Mens |
Outdoors |
2 tier BUCS league |
Scotland, North, East, West, Midlands, South-East |
Yes |
Sussex, Bath, Glasgow |
|
Womens |
Outdoors |
Regionals |
Scotland, North, East, West |
Yes |
UCL, Oxford, Edinburgh |
|
Mixed |
Outdoors |
Unknown |
No Regionals likely. |
NA |
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde |
Because of the differing regions involved in qualifying, knowing which University is in which region can be difficult. At latest count, there were fifty different Universities entering Men’s Indoor Regionals alone. To prevent confusion, we’ve decided to focus our initial coverage on only three qualifying events – Men’s Outdoor Regionals (the BUCS league, which runs from Autumn to Spring) and the two Women’s Regional events (one in Autumn, one in Spring). This is to give every team the potential for coverage without having to bother captains too much over the year with questions, allowing them to get on with the business of captaining.
This table only covers tournament preview articles. We’ll also be producing some tournament discussion pieces (and possibly other things) in collaboration with The Cutting Lane Floor. In addition, our new photographer apprentices will be working their best to capture the cool things you do on field.
We’re also very pleased to announce our University reporters for the coming year. Ali and Haydon return to help Harry in the management of writers. Jonny and Andrew also return as writers for their regions, but the rest of them will be making their Ultimate writing debut on The ShowGame very shortly. We’re very excited to be working with all of them, and can’t wait to see the articles they have in store.
|
Specialism |
Region |
Name |
Slack |
|
Women’s |
Scotland |
Annie |
@AnnieB |
|
North |
Kat |
@k-j |
|
|
West |
Becky* |
@Becky Greenwood |
|
|
East |
Isabel |
@gyanhan |
|
|
Men’s |
Scotland |
Oscar |
@Rush |
|
North |
Sam |
@Slender |
|
|
Midlands |
Alun* |
@Alun P |
|
|
West |
Andy |
@andrew |
|
|
South-East |
Jonny |
@jonnyarthur95 |
|
|
Div 3/Lower Leagues |
Tom |
@Clackers |
|
|
The editors |
UK |
Sean, DP, and Josh |
@theshowgame |
|
The co-ordinators |
UK |
Harry, Ali, and Haydon |
@hazard, @ali, @h.christou |
*Because we didn’t receive any applications for the Midlands/West, Becky and Alun will be covering these despite playing in different regions. This will only be for articles – for discussions they’ll just focus on the tournaments they played, so the Northern region will get double coverage!
If anyone wants to follow University Ultimate beyond the work of our fantastic writers, we recommend keeping an eye on twitter for tournaments (particularly this Twitter list) and www.reddit.com/r/ukultimate for post tournament discussion.
And again, make sure you’re following the ShowGame (and The Cutting Lane Floor) on all Facebook and Twitter accounts, to make sure you don’t miss a thing. Feel free to get in contact with any ideas or suggestions, and we hope you enjoy our coverage this year!
Key Dates: