Something strange is afoot in the University sporting world. Week in week out we see total commitment from thousands of students, many of whom take hours out of their degree time, travelling long distances across the country to compete, training late at night in often atrocious conditions, and for no other reason than passion for their sport. Yet time after time an arbitrary and illogical promotions system often fails to recognise their exertions.
Take both our men’s and women’s University lacrosse teams. Both were in line for promotion this year; the men’s team went unbeaten playing some truly excellent lacrosse, whilst the women have shone too.
However they have not yet been promoted. Due to logic that no doubt makes sense to BUCS management, the men will go into a playoff with unbeaten Liverpool in the parallel 2A league. This will result in one of two unbeaten teams this year missing out.
However both teams would have gone up, if Leeds Met had won their promotion match. This left the York side in limbo, waiting weeks to know whether they would be promoted automatically, sent to a playoff, or not promoted at all, hardly an ideal state of affairs.
The women’s team should feel even more hard done by. After finishing level on points with Northumbria and Durham, they failed to be promoted despite having a goal difference roughly double that of either of their rivals. A rather complicated mini table was devised, and Durham were placed first despite the fact that York had bested them in their earlier encounter. Nonetheless, Durham were still not promoted as Liverpool, in the parallel league, had a better goal difference than Durham, despite the fact it was an inferior goal difference to York’s.
Only in a parallel universe populated by a world of Sepp Blatter clones could this unwieldy and counter-intuitive system be seen to be effective. We’re left in the ridiculous position where teams who deserve to be promoted aren’t, due to events occurring in leagues perhaps many tiers above them. Meanwhile, teams who think they’ve been promoted get a nasty shock when they check the small print on the BUCS website, and realise they haven’t gone up at all.
Indeed with all the caveats and bizarre permutations of the BUCS systems,which differs radically from league to league and sport to sport, you probably need a doctorate in mathematics to actually understand what’s going on.
What would be wrong with a simple one up, one down promotion system that is used in pretty much every league sport you can imagine? Even if there is a need for a playoff, at least simplify it so teams are actually aware of what they need to do to be promoted. It must be incredibly disheartening to know that however well you play, your fate is effectively out of your hands.
The whole point of BUCS was to try to garner a more uniform, professional and coordinated approach to university sport. Sadly the current league structures are failing to deliver this and if anything act as a hindrance to the development of university sport, preventing the cream rising to the top and in some cases acting as a disincentive to progress. Teams know their chances of promotion are infinitesimally small and at the mercy of arbitrary calculations.
Sadly, such bizarre formulations are not limited to BUCS. The much discussed points system at Varsity was nothing short of a joke. Even Roses, which has a vastly superior and more flexible system, is not immune from such madness. Climbing, a sport Lancaster is known to excel in and which York does not, is worth a massive 18 points due to failure to agree on a replacement system.
Myopic administration and systems are a constant theme in university sport, and perhaps sport in general. If university sport wants to develop further and do justice to the blood, sweat and tears its participants put in week in week out, a consolidated and rationalised points and league structure is vital .