A large variety of sports is always beneficial in university sports competitions such as Roses or Varsity, since it showcases the wide-ranging sporting ability of institutions such as the University of York, while also allowing a greater number of students to participate in these fabulous tournaments.
However, the current points scoring system in place for both of the above mentioned competitions is rigid, frustrating and completely bemusing to many. Of course it’s great for people who do mountaineering or debating to get involved in such tournaments, but surely it is not right that victory in such events would lead to the same reward as prevailing in a high profile event such as football or rugby 1sts.
Instead of such a rigid scoring system, which sees points allocated by virtue of whether it is a first, second or third team fixture, a more fluid method should be used, which places greater importance on the flagship sports, such as football, netball and lacrosse, which have higher participation numbers, a greater reputation and attract more interest and spectators. By focusing a larger proportion of points on the more high profile sports, the result of the competition would be more reflective of the true comparative sporting abilities of the two institutions.
Indeed you only have to take a look at this year’s Varsity, where the sport offering the greatest opportunity to rack up a significant number of points was clay pigeon shooting. Thus victory in obscure sports such as this, mountaineering and trampolining can lead to a result which is not truly reflective of the nature of the tournament.
In Varsity, there were 98 points available, and more than a ninth of these could be attained by winning the clay pigeon shooting alone, an event which would win over the hearts and minds of only a very small segment of the population. Meanwhile the men’s football 1sts, MMA and netball 1sts all drew large crowds and received a lot of student attention, yet the trio of them combined were still worth less points than the clay pigeon shooting.
Thus it is no surprise that people have voiced their discontent with the current system, and called for a more sensible system, which would see a certain number of points awarded to a game depending on its importance. The fate of the tournament should be decided predominantly by the major sports which are most heavily participated in and supported, not those that are just given an inordinate number of points because of the way the rules currently stand.
Sports such as mountaineering, trampolining and so on undoubtedly still have a role to play in these major tournaments, but a tweaking of the system used to allocate points would definitely be a step forward for the future.