Moore seeks to capitalise on campus expansion
NEW AU PRESIDENT Tom Moore does not seem the type for revolutions, but he certainly has plans for sport at the University of York.
In his first interview since becoming Athletic Union President for the academic year 2006/07, Moore said he felt that we should be “looking to the future,” and with the new Heslington East development on the way, York should be aiming for a top ten finish in the BUSA rankings in future years. “This year is going to be big. There is going to be a lot of planning for the new campus. One of my main aims this year is to get Top 30 BUSA.”
Unfortunately such optimism hasn’t always led to achieving the desired results. Last year York lost their Roses title to Lancaster and finished a disappointing 34th place in the BUSA rankings, with several clubs seeing their first teams relegated from their respective divisions. In order to counteract this slump Moore plans on bringing in coaches to help improve standards and with the new grass pitch behind the sports centre he hopes that clubs will be given “more time” to practice before big matches.
Despite several sports clubs failing to live up to expectations last year Moore was keen to single out for praise clubs such as the Boat and Lacrosse teams who both had members or ex-members playing in international competitions over the summer. The Lacrosse team has an especially impressive line-up of internationals such as Stevie Schumacher and Richard Gilligan who both took part in the World Lacrosse Games, representing Wales and Ireland respectively.
Club President Alan Ward missed out on playing internationally for Ireland due to injury but praised his team-mates, commenting: “we are very proud of the number of international players we have in our squad.” Individual excellence was backed up by victories in the Anglo-Scottish Lacrosse league in which the men’s team lost only once, and victory in the BUSA championships over Edinburgh in a tight 1-0 victory.
For many clubs though it was a poor year, with relegation the outcome for the men’s football 1sts from the already inadequate sixth division of the BUSA northern leagues down to the seventh. Relegation was also suffered by the men’s hockey 1sts and badminton 1sts. Women’s sport was even worse as their rugby union team finished bottom of their division with only three points at the close of the season.
Moore felt there were several reasons for teams struggling last year, blaming the large turnover of players for some clubs and the late start which the University of York makes to the Autumn term. “The clubs play without really knowing their team which means you’ve lost the first two games.” But he denied that sport struggled due to a lack of finance: “A lot of problems in sport are due to a lack of money but at York we do have a lot of money in comparison to other universities.”
Whatever the reason for recent disappointments it is now up to the various sports clubs to find new talent at the AU Fair in Week 1 of Freshers’ Fortnight, with the men’s hockey team especially hoping for an influx of new blood to make up for the large losses of personnel last year. To try and encourage more students to sign up, gimmicks are being employed such as pool tables, gliders and the Boat Club running a rowing machine competition, in which the fastest male and female rowers at the end of the day win a prize.
