BUCS for University sports teams is the equivalent of all the UK’s professional sporting associations wrapped into one. Societies create their own committee and support networks which help both the universities and BUCS with the logistics of providing thousands of different sports teams, worthwhile and entertaining leagues to compete in.
To do this most societies recruit at their respective freshers’ fair, opening the doors to potential recruits and replenishing the numbers that would have left the previous year. The governing committee would then enter their teams into BUCS having shown they can field a full team; members are fully paid up and the committee has done the prerequisite training.
Covid – 19 and its many restrictions did not allow for this to be done in the time-honoured way last year. However, for most universities, even with thousands of freshers coming through the door every year, each university still chose to carry out their freshers’ fair. Teams were still able to recruit enough people to at least keep their teams in BUCS, even with playable games seemingly unlikely.
This is where some universities fall through the gaps.
Greenwich University and the University of Kent share a satellite campus in Medway, studying specialist subjects such as engineering and journalism respectively. They also share a student union (GKSU) and in turn field a separate team to their parent universities. While this gives students attending this campus their own culture and traditions and the opportunity to play locally.
It does have its downsides.
The first and the most evident issue, especially during such pressing times as a global pandemic, is simply a lack of people power. Satellite campuses such as these do not have the overabundance of students to make up for any changes in how things are run or achieved. This saw the loss of a lot of the female lead teams in football, rugby, futsal and basketball.
Arguably the biggest loser in all of this would be the men’s rugby team.
In 2018 against all odds, the Medway Spartans won their respective league, got promotion and even beat the Kent rugby team at Varsity. For the first time in the campus’s history Medway were the dominant team.
A short and unreasonably sharp decline was pending…
Over the next 3 years, even before the Covid – 19 outbreaks, a lack of numbers and apposite recruitment saw the team stay rooted to the bottom of the league for a whole season and undoing all the work of the previous year, with relegations shortly following.
Covid played its part in this story, forcing freshers fair to be held online, further hampering recruitment quality.
Kai Adams, Medway Spartans captain shared his thoughts.
“Well, I wasn’t very optimistic with a team due to Covid last year and only having 4 players left. After freshers we had more numbers and we tried to sign up to BUCs through late entry but for some reason they don’t want us. Because we didn’t sign up for last year, reapplying again means we are ‘technically’ a new team. We thought they were going to add us to league 6 (lowest tier) but apparently it was too much hassle?”
“I’m gutted we won’t get to play any matches; we are hoping to arrange friendlies with the Royal engineers and other local clubs.”
Knowing his team won’t even be entered into this year’s BUCs system, Mark Marriot, long term head coach of the Medway Spartans, questions if the team will even get to keep its previous record or if they literally have to start from scratch all again.
‘Well, it is a big, big shame. Covid hasn’t helped and I’ve never been overly impressed with how the student’s union deals with BUCs over the years.
I’ve always enjoyed helping the university with its rugby team, even the year we were relegated I enjoyed every moment of it. Always a good bunch of lads.
And winning the league the year before and beating Kent is one of my proudest achievements.
So, saying that this whole situation smarts a little is a bit of an understatement, especially as there was nothing, they boys could really have done to mitigate it.”
By Alex Gibbons