QuidditchUK

QuidditchUK is the official governing body of quidditch in the United Kingdom and is affiliated with the International Quidditch Association. It began in 2011 as a Facebook group intended to act as a network for quidditch teams and players within the UK to communicate with each other, become aware of local teams and resources,[1] and set up matches and new teams.

QuidditchUK
AbbreviationQUK
Formation2011
Legal statusNon-Profit Organisation
Location
President
Matt Bateman
Vice-President
Abby Whiteley
Websitewww.quidditchuk.org

History and internal structure

Since its foundation, QuidditchUK has become vastly developing organisation as, after hosting the Summer Games[2] in August 2012, there was a massive growth of quidditch teams throughout the country. It was at this point that QuidditchUK advanced from a network for UK teams and players, to become an established governing body of quidditch in the UK.[3]

A staffing structure was set up whose aim would be to develop and promote quidditch in the United Kingdom. Its current president is Matt Bateman, and the Vice President is Abby Whiteley.[4]

The staff of QUK is currently composed of volunteers within the quidditch community.[3] In May 2022, the role of QuidditchUK president was changed from a volunteer role into a paid position paying an annual salary of £5,000.[5]

Events

Previous competitive structure

The first British Quidditch Cup (BQC) was held on 9–10 November 2013, at University Parks in Oxford, England[6] with 16 teams competing.[3] The host team, Oxford's Radcliffe Chimeras, won the trophy, beating Avada Keeledavra[7] in the final with Bangor's Broken Broomsticks placing third. The second BQC[8] was held at Wollaton Hall and Deer Park, Nottingham on 7–8 March 2015 and was won by Southampton Quidditch Club 1.[8]

QuidditchUK operated a "Challenge Shield" league event which ran 2014–2015. This competitive format was phased out in 2015 in favour of two regional competitions.[9]

From 2015 until 2019, QuidditchUK ran the Northern and Southern Cups regional tournaments once each as separate 2 day fixtures at the start of the season which were open to any team that applied to play. The format consisted of round-robin group play on the first day followed by 2 knockout tournaments on the second day, with the top 2 teams from each group competing in a "champions" bracket and the rest playing in a "consolidation" bracket. The 2019 tournaments had a slightly different structure which removed the full knockout tournaments in favour of a "ranking bracket" stage followed by a "play-in" stage.[10] The tournaments were used for qualify teams for EQC (spots were distributed equally between the two regions) and the British Quidditch Cup (spots were distributed proportionately to the number of teams competing in the region), with seeding for BQC also being based on the results of the tournaments.

At the end of the season, the British Quidditch Cup was run as a 32 team tournament with the top teams as decided by regionals invited to compete. On day one of the tournament the teams were split into 8 groups of 4 where they would compete in a round robin. Day 2 followed the same "champions bracket"/ "consolation bracket" knockout structure seen in Northern and Southern Cups. BQC's final standings were used to rank all teams in attendance alongside seeding next season's regionals.

This format was phased out in 2021 favour of running the Northern and Southern tournaments for university teams only as multiple 1 day fixtures with round-robin style play within divisions. A new UK-wide Community League was formed that followed the same competitive format as an equivalent tournament to the new Northern and Southern Cups for community teams not affiliated with a university. The British Quidditch Cup would now be a 24 team tournament, with 12 university and 12 community teams[11]

Current competitive events and structure

Currently QUK runs 6 major tournaments: the regional university Northern and Southern Cups, British Quidditch Cup, Development Cup, European Qualifier Tournament and most recently the Community League. The two university regionals and the Community League are used to qualify teams for the British Quidditch Cup.

Northern and Southern Cups (for university teams) and the Community League (for community teams) are run as multiple 1 day fixtures over the season with teams divided into divisions of around 5 teams each that compete in a round-robin at each fixture. At the end of each fixture, the top team in each division is promoted to the division above and the bottom team in each division is relegated to the division below.

The top 12 community team and top 12 university teams after all fixtures qualify for British Quidditch Cup, with the 12 university places being distributed proportionately between the Northern and the Southern regions based on the number of teams competing in each.

The Development Cup was introduced in 2017 to allow any team that did not qualify for BQC to compete, with its main aim being to allow teams with little competitive experience the opportunity to play other teams of a similar level competitively. The first Development Cup encouraged experienced coaches to coach an attending team for the weekend in order to help them develop as a team and was won by Liverpool's "Liverpuddly Cannons".

The European Qualifier Tournament is an opt-in tournament that is used to determine qualification for teams to represent the UK at European Quidditch Cup in Divisions 1 and 2 (based on the team's overall performance). Both community and university teams can attend with a maximum number of 20 teams. Rankings at the university regionals and Community League fixtures are used to determine attendance priority if more than this number of teams apply to compete.

Future aims

By the 2017–18 season QuidditchUK aim to have six official tournaments [12]

QUK aim to increase the number and quality of its officials (referee, time keeping, snitching and scorekeeping). From discussions with the International Referee Development Programme the aim is for all officials to be certified. To assist with this mock tests and additional resources as well as the standardized training packages and snitch training academies that the organisation offers every season.[3] By 2018 they predict to have all member clubs providing a fully qualified referee team to expand the number of officials and assist with running of tournaments.[3] QUK aims to be recognised by Sports England by 2020. The organisation will potentially explore BUCS recognition.[3]

Teams

These are the teams involved with UK Quidditch listed as they appear in QuidditchUK's team directory:[13]

Currently actively competing Quidditch clubs:

  • Bangor Broken Broomsticks
  • Bath Quidditch Club
  • Bournemouth Banshees Quidditch Club
  • Bristol Quidditch Club
  • Cambridge University Quidditch Club
  • Chester Centurions
  • Derby Daemons
  • Durham University Quidditch Club
  • Exeter Eagles
  • Canterbury Flying Chaucers
  • Glasgow Grim Reapers
  • York Horntails Quidditch Club
  • Holyrood Hippogriffs
  • Keele University Quidditch Club
  • Kent Quidditch Club
  • Leeds Griffins Quidditch Team
  • Leicester Thestrals
  • Liverpuddly Cannons
  • Loughborough Longshots
  • London Quidditch Club
  • London Unspeakables
  • Manchester Universities Quidditch Club
  • Northumbria Quidditch Club
  • Northern Lights Quidditch Club
  • Norwich Nifflers
  • Nottingham Nightmares
  • Oxford University Quidditch Club
  • Sheffield Quidditch Club
  • Southampton Quidditch Club
  • Southsea Quidditch
  • St Andrews Snidgets
  • Stirling University Dumyat Dragons Quidditch
  • Swansea Swans
  • Tremough Quidditch Club (Falmouth)
  • UCLAN Quidditch Club (Preston)
  • Velociraptors Quidditch Club
  • Warwick Quidditch Club
  • Werewolves of London
  • Wimbourne Wasps

European competition

The first international club level fixture took place in Brussels, February 2014 when both Oxford University teams were invited to play in the European Quidditch Cup (then known as the European Regional Championships), Oxford's first team "the Radcliffe Chimeras" came 1st. in the following years, more teams where invited to the European Quidditch cup. In 2015 the UK hosted EQC, originally the UK were supposed to send 6 teams but due to dropouts 10 teams were sent to replace those missing. In 2016 the UK sent 8 teams to Italy, 7 out of 8 came finished in the upper bracket while the other team didn't lose a match on day 2. 2017 saw 6 teams compete in Belgium. 2018 saw 4 teams compete Germany.

2016 onwards saw teams compete for EQC spots, halve the spots were given to the top teams in the north, the other half were given to the top teams in the south.

The 2018/2019 Season onwards saw top-teams from the South and North compete for 12 spots in a special European Qualifier Tournament (EQT) held in London. This tournament was used to determine the top eight teams qualifying for EQC spots.

National team
Main article: United Kingdom national quidditch team

QuidditchUK also plays hosts to Team UK[14] which represents the UK in international quidditch tournaments. The team made its debut in 2012 at the Summer Games in Oxford where it placed 5th of five teams. Team UK travelled to Burnaby, Canada for the 2014 Global Games to compete and ranked 4th. In 2015 Team UK competed in the inaugural European Games held in Sarteano, Italy placing second behind France, after a close final that ended 90*–50. In July 2016, Team UK[15] competed in the World Cup, formerly known as the Global Games, in the host city of Frankfurt, Germany.[16]

Below is a table of all Team UK's major fixtures.[15]

Year Host nation Placed Number of teams
2012 Oxford, UK 5th 5
2014 Burnaby, Canada 4th 7
2015 Sarteano, Italy 2nd 12
2016 Frankfurt, Germany 3rd 21
2017 Oslo, Norway 1st 15
2018 Florence, Italy 4th 29

See also

References
  1. "Hooch Initiative QuidditchUK" (PDF). quidditchuk.org. 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 August 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  2. "British Quidditch Cup History". quidditchuk.org. Archived from the original on 3 April 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  3. "QuidditchUK Strategic Plan 2015- 2018" (PDF). quidditchuk.org/files/QuidditchUK_Strategic_Plan. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2016.
  4. "QuidditchUK - About". quidditchuk.org. Archived from the original on 3 April 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  5. "QuidditchUK President Role to Become Paid Position | QuidditchUK". QuidditchUK – Find Your Passion. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  6. "BBC News - First 'Quidditch' British Cup held in Oxford". BBC Online. Retrieved 25 November 2013. In total 26 matches for the inaugural national tournament took place in the University Parks grounds. Chairman of Quidditch UK Ben Morton said this was "the biggest Quidditch tournament outside America".
  7. "Oxford Quidditch Club". www.ouqc.uk. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  8. "BQC 2014-15 Overall Result" (PDF). QuidditchUK. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 August 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  9. "QuidditchUK - Calendar". quidditchuk.org. Archived from the original on 27 March 2016. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  10. "Northern Player Guide 2019". Google Docs. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  11. "A 2021/2022 Season | QuidditchUK". QuidditchUK – Find Your Passion. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  12. "QuidditchUK Strategic Plan 2015- 2018" (PDF). quidditchuk.org/files/QuidditchUK_Strategic_Plan. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2016.
  13. "QuidditchUK - Clubs". quidditchuk.org. Archived from the original on 3 April 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  14. "QuidditchUK - TeamUK". quidditchuk.org. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  15. "QuidditchUK - TeamUK". quidditchuk.org. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  16. "International Quidditch Association". www.iqaquidditch.org. Archived from the original on 19 April 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
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