Top 10 things to know about sport at Bath.
By Emma Chandler
When choosing my university, sporting prowess had always been high on my list of priorities, so when initially visiting Bath I was blown away by both the quality and quantity of the facilities here. After having my place confirmed I was so excited to get here and get involved with sports on campus, and that is exactly what I did! However, after speaking to some of my friends, they had no idea about the sporting opportunities at Bath – so here are my top 10 things to know about sport at Bath.
1. There are 48 sports clubs at Bath, offering the opportunity to play, coach and volunteer. Currently, most clubs cost £35 to join for the year, and a further £65 if you are selected to play for the university in BUCS. If you just want to be a member of SU sport rather than a specific club, then you can currently buy a membership for £10 which gives you access to hire equipment, coach education subsidies and the sports volunteer recognition scheme.
2. BUCS is British Universities and Colleges Sport. For most sports at Bath this is the highest level of university representation and to get into a BUCS team you will have to attend trials. If you have a look at thesubath.com/sport you can see how many teams each sport has.
3. Wednesday is Sport’s Day at uni, meaning that there are no undergraduate lectures on Wednesday afternoons to enable you to play or watch some sport! After the games most teams will head to SCORE, the weekly sport’s night out, held in the SU.
4. The trials and tasters for most clubs happen in Freshers’ Week; many of which happen before the SU Sports’ Day on the Thursday. If you are very keen on representing Bath against other universities I would highly recommend looking at individual club pages and on Facebook to look for details because you don’t want to miss out!
5. If you attend a trial and are not selected, DO NOT PANIC! The majority of clubs also offer a social offer with many offering an internal competitive league. For example in the netball club there are 5 BUCS teams, 6 internal competitive development teams and a social league. In addition to social leagues, many sports are fluid in their selection of teams, meaning if you don’t initially make the team but keep training and being dedicated then you may move up into a team later in the year.
6. From your second year you can get involved in the running of a club through being on a committee. Committees are elected in March each year, to run in the elections you write a short manifesto and get people to vote for you!
7. If you want to get involved with running sport at Bath at a higher level, there is a Sports’ Executive Committee who assist the Sport Officer in running sports at Bath. As a Fresher I was intimidated running for a role as I didn’t think I had enough experience, but it was one of the best decisions of my university career. You get training in the role, and you meet loads of like-minded sporty people who want to give back to the SU!
8. If you don’t want to get involved with a sports club but want to keep active; we have the Bath Active programme which has a variety of free sports on every week, just check out their Facebook page!
9. Varsity is the biggest day of the sports calendar. It is against Cardiff Met and this year it will be away. A variety of sports compete to see who is crowned the champion (Bath has won for the past 3 years, let’s keep that up!)
10. Have fun! Try a new sport; get involved in volunteering; watch a BUCS game; go to SCORE! There are so many sporting opportunities here so throw yourself in the deep end – you won’t regret it!
There are so many more wonderful things that I could say about sport at Bath but those are my top 10 things to know! I can’t wait to meet you all in September!