Green vs Yellow. The battle to reclaim the city.
On the penultimate afternoon of March, Burgh Varsity saw a selection of Edinburgh’s finest athletes battle out against our frenemies over at Heriot Watt Sports Union. Our sporting teams gave the chance for those students who will be graduating this year the opportunity to bow out on a high, while giving other students a chance to partake in some fun filled competition. The day’s action took place in weather conditions somewhat drastically different to the previous days, as we were greeted with snow, sleet, and hail. This did not dampen Edinburgh’s, or the Watt Family spirits with numerous entertaining encounters on show. Sharing host duties with Heriot Watt we had action from Peffermill, Pleasance, St Leonard’s Land, Easteron equestrian centre, Meadow’s tennis courts, Saughton track and Oriam sports centre. Our first Burgh Varsity in three years due to Covid 19, saw Edinburgh take a 34-18 lead into the grand finale of action on our 11th week of term. Hopes were high for both sets of Universities as the yellow of Heriot Watt attempted to reclaim the city from the green of Edinburgh.
Futsal
It has been a really successful year for all involved with futsal at Edinburgh, with our men’s first team finishing as BUCS 1 League winners, and a promotion from the Scottish Tier 2 for our B team. We were aiming to end the season on a high and continue our rich vein of futsal form, with our 2s previously edging out Heriot Watt’s 1s 3-2, earlier in the season.
With our team in action at noon a strong start for Edinburgh here was needed. They duly provided with a 4-2 victory.
Fencing
At St Leonard’s Land our recent women’s BUCS National Champions were in action again, this time aiming for Burgh Varsity gold!
In the fights against Heriot Watt, we were represented by male and female athletes consisting of Chloe Dickson, Mhairi McLaughlin, Georgia Haynes, Dylan Morrison
Dennis Cheng, Rory McLellan, Quentin Geoffroy and Giulia Gasparin. A 113-77 victory for our fencers secured city bragging rights for Edinburgh.
GAA
Buoyed by their performances at the recent British GAA Championships last week reaching the semi-final, our men’s team hoped to build on that momentum against a strong Heriot Watt outfit.
In our men’s encounter at Peffermill playing fields our men’s team just did exactly that with a 3-13:1-18 victory.
We would like to wish the very best of luck to the women at GAA who are playing in their British Championships this weekend.
For those new to Gaelic football a goal is scored when the ball crosses the goal line between the posts and under the crossbar. When the ball goes over the crossbar that counts for 1 point and a goal counts for 3 points. So, Edinburgh’s 3-13 equals 22 points compared to Heriot Watt’s 1-18 21points.
Volleyball
Down at St Leonard’s land games hall we had two terrific encounters from our men’s and women’s teams. A raucous atmosphere generated in the hall brought out the best in both teams with both teams cheering on pre- and post-match. First up was our men’s team who were levelled 1-1 going into the 3rd set with the score line consistently changing sides, though Heriot Watt edged ahead to take the 3rd set 25-22. Going into the 4th set Edinburgh knew that a fourth set win would be a must in the best of 5 sets encounter. Though unfortunately Heriot Watt got even stronger taking the 4th set 25-15 to win 3 sets to 1 overall.
Athletics
Hosted at Saughton track roughly halfway between Oriam and Edinburgh’s central campus this “neutral” venue hosted our athletics events in the afternoon.
Another Edinburgh victory was wrapped up by athletes from our athletics club and Hare and Hounds.
We won in both categories with a 53-43 win for our women and 62-34 win for our men.
Rugby
Our men's rugby team line up: Nicholas Brimacombe, Huw Paulson, Ruairidh Orr Ewing, George Davis, Cam Klinger, Fin McCartney, James Longwell, Guy Jones, Cam Macdonald, Lachlan Kelly, Jacob Streat, Luke Sterry, Andrew Weir, Harry Hitchens, and Ben Heber.
Our men’s rugby kicked off at 1pm on our 3G pitch.
Our leaver’s team did themselves proud walking off to a 26-21 victory.
Table Tennis
Played at Oriam sports centre, numerous close matches led to Edinburgh taking the win overall 9-8. Our team playing in the round robin format were made up of Jakub Kára, Isaac Holst, Ben Heywood, and Yu Xia.
Football
Women’s
It is evident early on that our women’s leavers team made up of 1, 2s and 3s players were a class above our opponents. We were a formidable force showing no mercy to Heriot Watt, coming in with a 4-0 lead at Half time. We didn’t let off and more relentless attacking paid dividends with Edinburgh reaching double digits to walk off with their heads held high with a commanding 11-0 victory.
Men’s
Moving from the 3G pitch of pitch 2 to the grass pitch of East 1 our men’s team aimed to avoid Heriot Watt making it 10 consecutive men’s football Varsity titles. We did not make this an easy tie for Heriot Watt though! Both teams went into half time at 1-1 apiece. Although, it would be Heriot Watt who would strike first in the second half at the 55th minute. Edinburgh weren’t able to force extra time with Heriot Watt seeing out the match to win 2-1.
Hockey
We had two matches each from our men’s and women’s sides at Peffermill playing fields.
Women’s
Squad Line up vs HW 2XI: Natalie McCaig, Amy Knowles(C), Emma Turner, Makena Dugan,Catherine Johnston,Mollie Coleman, Laura Webster,Sydney Kwok,Rebecca Gourlay,BethanyHipson, Martha Franks,Gia Smith, Liv Wade Jones, India Roberts, Lucy da Costa, Aoife Byrne, Petra Vrdoljak, Lizzie McNish & Katherine Oliver
Squad Line up vs HW 1XI: Molly Gingerbread Johnston, Imogen Johnstone-Jones (C), Rebecca Mcbride, Emma Carrie, Katie Charles, Corinne Philips, Claire Rendall, Pip Howes, Rowena Hosie, Kirti Mehta, Rachel Shiel, Kathryn Meenan, Jenny Walls.
First up against Heriot Watt's 2's at 1pm winning 8-0.
Our Leaver’s XI faced a tough test against Heriot Watt’s first team, narrowly losing 1-0.
Men’s
The two results were a 3-0 win to the All Stars and a 4-1 win for Heriot Watt Angels.
Netball
Netball Line up: Meg Wallace (GA/WA), Lowri Evans (GA/GS), Katie White (GA/GS),Jess Willshaw (WA/WD), Mackenzie Serpell (WA/C), Anna Maine (C/WA), Anna Horrabin (C/WA), Dionne Dorricot (C/WD), Louise Adams (C/WA), Rebecca Metcalfe (WD/C), Niamh Poland (WD), Romy Byron (WD), Elin Crotty (WD), Millie Richardson (WD/GD), Rona Wilson (WD/GD), Ellen Wilson (GD), Hannah Spratt (GK/GD) and Flo Gregory (GK).
Our netball team came away with a 47-24 victory.
A few days after their Burgh Varsity victory Edinburgh Netball participated in a 12 hour netball game hoping to raise funds for the development of coaching , officials and umpiring. They are hoping to raise £1000 for this with surplus donations going to Strut Safe Edinburgh. They have raised a lot of money so far, however they are just shy of their goal.
Please check out their crowdfunder and donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/eunc-12-hour-netball-match-fundraiser?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer
Badminton
Burgh Varisty Badminton line up: Cameron Strachan, Calum Atterbury, Abhishek Nambiar, James Sheppard, Jane Yi Chaim, Ai Jiang, Dawn Lu and Frida Laigu.
An overall 10-2 victory for our Badminton leaver’s team.
Tennis
Over to the meadows tennis courts we were in action with 16 players from both universities.
Our tennis team line up: Clara Loughlin, Clara S-Izquierdo, Daniela Szynkowska, Hamish Burns, Josephine Morley, Milad Sherzad, Rodrigo Belzunce and Sam Symes.
Coming away with a 7-5 overall victory made it a successful afternoon for our tennis club.
Squash
Held at the Pleasance Gym Squash courts we had 7 athletes battling it out for Burgh Varsity points.
Our Squash Burgh Varsity line up: John Meehan, Kevin Cheung, Alex Ralston, Nathan Sharp, James Riches, Stefan Ranoszek, Andrew Boyd.
With the six games on show, Heriot Watt came away with decisive wins in 4 out the 6 games. Our two victories were both 3-0 wins, for James Riches and Andrew Boyd.
Nathan Sharp narrowly lossed out 3 sets to 2, as did Stefan Ranoszek, while Kevin Cheung lost 3 sets to 1, and completing our team was 1st team captain John Meehan in a 3 sets to nill defeat.
Notable performances that are worthy of an additional highlight, include Nathan Sharp in his final game donning the famous University of Edinburgh logo, Kevin Cheung performing admirably against a professional Heriot Watt opponent. Lastly we had Stefan Ranoszek involved in the game of the tournament.
Equestrian
Hosted at Easterton Farm Park in Milngavie just north of Glasgow we had 8 competitors. Representing Edinburgh we had Pollyanna Jackson, Livy Brady, Katrine Redman, Rhiannon Kozel, Andy Ramsoy, Orla Rackham, Rhiannon Edge and Eilidh MacAulay.
Riding for our first team we had Orla, Rhiannon, Katrine with a 4th place finish. In our second team we had Polly, Andy, Eilidh and Livy who came first!
Commendable performances from Katrine with individual first, Polly for second and Andy for third spot.
Unfortunately, we were just edged out here by Heriot Watt Equestrian who took the overall victory for the day taking Varsity points back to Oriam.
Handball
Playing in their first ever Burgh Varsity one of our newest sports took to the court at Oriam Sports Centre.
Men’s
Starting with throw-off at 1pm our men’s team were in a close fought battle from the start with Edinburgh taking the win 26-24.
Men’s Line Ups: Casper Vestergaard, Lavro Kuzic, Malcolm Stewart, Mads Aune, Ben Yapp, Noah Roper, Gaku Hirooka, Nikolas Ringas, Lyder Moller Ulvan, Josef Casi, Thomas Vinding Husebey, Joseba Agirre, Dhruv Gapta, Alexander Schlepper and Cesar Ochoa
Women’s
Women’s Line Up:
Tamara Trefzer, Chloe Lestienne, Naomi Amir Millard, Marie Boutrolle, Ragna Engseth, Eliska Petrasova, Megan Wilson and Dagmar Jonhardsdottir Danielsen
In a much more one-sided game, our women’s team took a commanding victory of 23 points to 3.
Climbing
We welcomed Heriot Watt to our indoor climbing centre at the Pleasance where we had 6 competitors from our mountaineering club in action. We had an all-Edinburgh podium finish in the men’s draw with James Milton and Ronan Blackwood and Olly Ferguson. Further success was ensued by our women with Anna Pasteur in 1st, Ellie Pauli in 2nd and Megan Durkin in 4th. Some great results from our climbers resulted in us taking the overall climbing win with 589 points compared to Heriot Watt’s 482.
Basketball
We had a men’s and a women’s team on court for us in the Pleasance Games Hall.
Starting off our proceedings we had our women’s team with tip off at noon. We won this pretty comfortably with a 54-33 victory.
Our men’s team tipped off at 1:30 and were in a much tighter affair though we pulled of a 95-87 victory.
Aftewards we spoke to the Assistant Director & Head of Sport Ross Simpson who was full of praise.
“It was great to see the friendly rivalry back once again, and so many students taking part. It was also fantastic to be able to give all the UoE clubs an opportunity to allow their leavers one last run out in the UoE strips. A big thanks as always to the volunteers and staff team who made sure the day was a success.”
Overall, this was a very successful day for Burgh Varsity with terrific endeavour from Edinburgh and Heriot Watt. Kudos to all participants, officials and volunteers who made this great event happen. As the evening drawn to a close it is made clear that Edinburgh did indeed hold on to our lead, showing that #ThisCityIsOurs with a 55-25 overall victory.
Better luck next year Heriot Watt!
Photos provided by Heather Gault.