Quadball team polishing broomsticks for British cup

A quadball team are lacing their boots and polishing their broomsticks in preparation for their first national competition since the pandemic.

Originally based on quidditch, made famous by the Harry Potter books, it is believed to be one of only a few mixed-gender, full-contact sports in the world.

The club at the University of Cambridge stopped meeting during the Covid-19 pandemic and only sprung back into life last year.

Club president William Brilliant and his team will join forces with the University of Leicester to compete as one team at the British Quadball Cup next month.

"Quadball is unlike any other sport," said the first-year astrophysics PhD student.

"It's not like football or netball or hockey, where people have been doing it since they were eight years old and have had all that time to get very good.

"No-one's done it before, everyone starts equally bad.

"As a team, as a group, you can move up together and that's honestly I think a fantastic team dynamic to have."

Mr Brilliant admits that although there is a lot of curiosity around the game, recruitment can be tough.

The team has about six regular members and a couple more turning out for socials.

"We started a little slow - we didn't have anything to build off of initially, but I have good hopes we can begin to build up some momentum and keep going up."

Mr Brilliant is confident the team can arrange regular matches with rivals Oxford next year.

It has been nearly 20 years since quidditch flew from the pages of Harry Potter to real-life playing fields.

Quadball, which league bosses renamed from Quidditch in an attempt to distance themselves from author JK Rowling, is played by nearly 600 teams in 40 countries

Players aim to beat the opposing team by scoring volleyballs, defending with tackles and dodgeballs or catching a flag.

It is essentially played as it appears in Harry Potter, but sadly, players cannot fly and instead manoeuvre round the field on foot while astride a stick.

Mr Brilliant said he had seen the films and read the books, but had no idea it was a sport until free pizza enticed him to a taster session.

Perhaps the best-known element of the game is the golden snitch, famously very nearly swallowed by Harry Potter during his first-ever quidditch match.

But instead of a winged, walnut-sized ball, real-life seekers chase a flag runner dressed in yellow, who has a sock with a tennis ball inside attached to their shorts.

Mr Brilliant plays as a beater who disrupts play by throwing dodgeballs at opposing players.

If hit they must dismount their broom and run back to their own hoops to tag back in.

The quadball university league is run by Quadball UK, and hosts tournaments between teams.

Cambridge will compete with Leicester in the British cup at Keele University in Newcastle on 9-10 May.

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