British Universities and Colleges Sport


The British Universities & Colleges Sport is the governing body for university sport in the United Kingdom. BUCS was formed in June 2008 following a merger of the British Universities Sports Association and University College Sport organisations. BUCS is responsible for organising more than 50 inter-university sports within the UK and representative teams for the World University Championships and the World University Games.
BUCS is a membership organisation for over 170 universities and colleges in the UK, with over 4,800 teams participating in BUCS competitions. BUCS membership is open to all legal entities that are recognised higher education providers, including universities, HE colleges and FE colleges that offer HE qualifications. "Playing entities" – the institutions that actually compete – may be formed as a single entity from the whole student body of a member institution, as separate entities from main and satellite campuses, or from an umbrella body covering multiple HE institutions.
BUCS organises a three-day national championships event for individual sports called the BUCS Nationals. This was introduced in 2013, and has been held every year in Sheffield. The other major multi-sport event run by BUCS is the single-day BUCS Big Wednesday, which sees the Championship finals of the team sports leagues take place on the same day, with the venue changing annually between different universities.

Sports

These sports form part of the domestic BUCS competition:
There are also a number of sports that BUCS works with to encourage student involvement that are not currently part of the main BUCS competition:
The inter university league competition provides for singles and level doubles, omitting mixed doubles.

Sponsors

BUCS currently has various sponsors across the organisation; Kukri Sports is the Official Teamwear Supplier to BUCS. Deloitte which has been associated with BUCS since 2012. BUCS also has other sponsorship deals with Red Bull, Endsleigh, and Molten Sport.

Overall Championship

BUCS awards points in all its competitions towards the 'BUCS Overall Championship' – a ranking of member universities' sporting achievements. The overall winner receives the Kerslake Trophy, first awarded in 1959 to Birmingham; Loughborough has won this every year since 1978–79. Besides Loughborough, Birmingham have been champions 15 times, Manchester 4 times and Bristol once.
Since 2002–03, Bath, Birmingham, Durham, Edinburgh and Leeds Met Carnegie have all achieved multiple top 3 finishes. Until 2005–06, only total points were given; in 2006–07 and 2007–08 this was broken down into "league" and "knockout", then from 2008–09 to 2010–11 into "team" and "individual". From 2011–12, "team" has been split into "league" and "cup". Until 2013–14, Loughborough scored highest in every category as well as highest overall. However, Durham has been top scorer in league competitions since 2013–14 and in cup competitions since 2014–15, although Loughborough's overwhelming dominance in individual competitions, particularly athletics and swimming, has enabled them to stay comfortably ahead in the overall table.

History of student sport administration in the UK

BUCS is the latest manifestation of an association for the promotion of inter-university sport. Competition between various universities had existed for many decades before the twentieth century, notably the rivalries between Oxford and Cambridge, and those between the country's medical schools. However no association existed to oversee or promote more widespread inter-university competition. In February 1918, the Presidents of University Unions conference in Manchester called for the need to establish such an association and the following year the Inter-Varsity Board of England and Wales held its first round table inter-varsity meeting, with representatives of nine universities present. There was another round table meeting on 14 March 1919 to formalize this body and it involved 10 universities. The plan was to hold a track and field meeting at Aberystwyth on 28 May 1919. What actually happened is that 11 universities were due to compete on that date but only 9 actually did and the event happened in Manchester. The 9 were; Aberystwyth, Bangor, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield. The two who did not compete were Nottingham and Durham. Bristol got involved after the March round table meeting. The BUCS website currently does not have the correct information about this. In 1922, association football, field hockey, rugby union and swimming were added to the events programme and the following year the Women's Inter-Varsity Board came into being. In 1930 the Universities Athletic Union was established to manage inter-university men's competition across the whole country. To manage Britain's student representation at an international level, the British Universities Sports Board was formed in 1952. This was replaced in 1962 by the British Universities Sports Federation with the Scottish Universities Sports Federation, the University of Wales Athletic Union and the Northern Ireland Universities Sports Committee being corporate members. However, colleges and polytechnics were excluded from membership and had their own equivalent bodies, the British Colleges Sports Association and the British Polytechnic Sports Association. Until 1979 men's and women's sport were still represented in England and Wales by separate bodies. The Women's Inter-Varsity Board was then merged into the Universities Athletic Union. In 1992, the divide between universities and polytechnics was removed and a new single organisation was called for to represent them jointly. This led to the UAU and BUSF merging to create British Universities Sports Association.
Meanwhile, there had been a development of the representation for staff responsible for sport at university. Thus, in 1960 the Universities Physical Education Association had been formed which in 1972 became the British Universities Physical Education Association. This in turn merged with the Association of Polytechnic Physical Education Lecturers to become British Universities and Colleges Physical Education Association and in 2000 this was renamed as University and College Sport.
In June 2008 British Universities & Colleges Sport was incorporated as a merger of UCS and BUSA to create one national association for university sport.