Article written by Joe Tanner, Impact Magazine's Sports Editor originally published on Impact.
The University of Nottingham have won this year’s Nottingham Varsity Series, defeating Nottingham Trent University 12-9. The victory, sealed at Sunday’s Women’s rugby union with a 21-7 win, sees the Green and Gold triumph in the Series for a sixth consecutive year.
30 sports were played across two weeks of action before and after the University’s Easter break, in the largest Series there has ever been. The University of Nottingham were victorious at men’s and women’s volleyball, women’s futsal, women’s lacrosse, Super Wednesday (UoN), netball, water polo, mens and women’s hockey, women’s basketball, Super Wednesday (NTU) and women’s rugby union, over the course of 14 days of sporting action in locations across Nottingham.
While there were narrow defeats in some of the high octane encounters like ice hockey and mens basketball, the Green and Gold won the majority of events across the series for the sixth year running. The achievement is a testament to the sheer depth and extent of sport on offer at the University of Nottingham, the number and quality of the sporting participants, the continual progression in the BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) leagues (where UoN currently stand in third) and the common goal of retaining glory for the Green and Gold against our cross-city counterparts.
The increasingly closer scoreline is a credit to Nottingham Trent’s progression in sport over the last few campaigns. NTU have climbed up to 13th in the BUCS rankings this year, a new high for the university, accumulating a 51% win rate. They are also implementing the sports scholar scheme adopted now by so many institutions across the UK. Only on Sunday, nine of their men’s rugby union players were selected to play for next season’s Nottingham Rugby squad.
2017/18 SU Sports Officer Adam Pratchett was delighted with this year’s Varsity and expects it to be even better next year. “What an incredible series! From the spectators to the staff and competitors, this has been an amazing series with UoN yet again coming out on top.”
“It was great to see David Ross Sports Village being used to its full potential on Super Wednesday with so many sports in such close proximity. This year we’ve seen the addition of new sports and continued to grow the Varsity offer. In particular I want to highlight Wheelchair Basketball which was part of Trent’s Super Wednesday this year and is our first fully inclusive Varsity sport.”
“I am incredibly excited about Varsity 2018 and I can’t wait to start work on it. From my involvement with Varsity Basketball it is clear how much time and effort goes into organising the events and I hope to carry on their amazing work. I want to thank Lauren Heria and Matt Nich0lson, along with all the staff at UoN and NTU for all their efforts. I hope Izzy and I can carry on their great work. I’m going to do my best to make Varsity 2018 bigger and better than ever.”
Visit Impact Magazine to read the full Varsity 2017 round-up.
Posted on Thursday 18th May 2017