Best UK universities for sport

[thing47]

Anyone see this weekend's article about the top universities for sport in the UK? It was on the back of talking about The Boat Race but made the point that neither Oxford nor Cambridge are in the overall top 10 for sport any more (although still very strong in rowing). Not obviously a massive issue for the vast majority of students, but an interesting stat nonetheless.

I don't think anyone thinks to go to Oxford or Cambridge for their sporting provision (apart from rowing of course). Loughborough has to be top choice surely?

Or Bath.

Loughborough or Nottingham

ds is a rower and it was interesting looking at unis rated highly for rowing and it is not always the ones you think!

It's not clear whether OP wants to know which universities are best for studying sport (in which case, Loughborough holds the crown) or for playing sport while studying something else.

Bath

Depends if you are talking about hobby sport or elite/international level.

Loughborough

Anyone have a link to the article - it might help DS with his uni choices. Thanks!

Depends what you mean by best.

Do you mean which university attracts the best and so has the best 1st teams? Oxford and Cambridge don't, but the advantage of college based universities is that everyone has an opportunity to play at college level, so lots of people can try rowing, for example.

Were they ever?

That's no surprise to me. I know a good deal about two specific BUCS sports (one played by DS and one where I officiate) and at neither is Cambs or Ox any great shakes.

I officiate at athletics and the Cambs team at the indoor event in Sheffield Feb was three students. To compare, the team from Stirling uni (a lot further away obvs) was about 15 students and there were dozens from Birmingham, for example, plus strong teams from other Scottish unis as well as Bath, Brunel, Cardiff Met, Nottingham, Leeds Beckett, Sheffield and Sheff Hallam, along with obvs a huge contingent from Lboro, to name just a few that were stronger than either Ox or Cambs.

DS's sport - top unis are Durham, UWE, Nottingham, Leeds B, Lboro, Brunel, NTU among others.

Lboro btw great for studying sport or playing it as well. Massive opportunities for all.

Historically, Oxbridge provided a lot of international cricketers and rugby players, and some athletes. Nut that is no longer the case, it seems. Apparently there were more rowers from Oxford Brookes than Oxford.University at the last Olympics.

There is a BUCS league table, so you can study the breakdown by individual sports and by gender if you wish. The overall table merely tots up points across all sports and both genders. And I guess an obvious weakness.of that is that not all top sportsmen and.women would necessarily represent their universities - @clary I assume Amy Hunt wouldn't compete in BUCS events, for example?

So not making any larger claim than that I found it interesting.

I remember back about 30 years ago when I went to Loughborough and swam for their first team. I wasn’t one of the best, but not too bad. Anyway, we went for a gala against Cambridge. As a fresher, I was bricking it. I need not have worried. For my race, I think it was 200 fly, the girl from Cambridge on the block next to me couldn’t even finish. It was somewhat one sided and I had utterly relaxed by the end. I don’t think they beat us in a single event. And then we all got pissed afterwards.

Reading is very good for rowing. I’m sure there are other very specialised unis for particular sports.

otherwise it’s surely either Bath or Loughborough.

I don’t know about Amy Hunt specifically (and in fact I infer from the way she talks about it she may have scaled down her athletics when at uni, but I don’t know for sure) but I have officiated in BUCS callrooms which included both Holly Bradshaw and Alex Haydock-Wilson, both already world-class athletes at the time. Both competing for Lboro.

Equally the indoor British champs this year (which clashed with BUCS) saw medallists in men's hurdles, pole vault, women's hurdles and triple jump (among others) whom I have officiated for at BUCS over the years (some are still uni students now).

Newcastle University has a leading boat club and rowing programme. It’s also an excellent university.

https://www.newcastlerowing.com/

Newcastle University Boat Club’s High Performance Programme is recognised and supported by the GB Rowing Team and funded through the National Lottery. NUBC has a track record of coaching rowers to represent Great Britain at the under-23 World Champions and step on to represent their country at the World Championships and Olympics. We are committed to GB Rowing's World Class Performance Strategy.

It is still one of the somewhat more affordable cities to live in for students, if they pick their area wisely when they move out of Halls.

Obviously other sports are available!

Oxford Brookes has invested heavily in their rowing programme, but it's very much aimed at elite rowers. Their boats are full of post-grads who are only there for the rowing, rather than for the academics.

Following this thread as my eldest is keen to play sports at university. From the age of 13, he’s had Loughborough in mind but I’m keen to hear of others. He’s naturally academic without putting in any additional work and predicted 8’s and 9’s at GCSE but unsure of anything career wise. Every time we discuss university/longer term plans his focus is the fact that he really enjoys a variety of sports and plays/captains for the A teams at school.

I wouldn't have thought Oxford or Cambridge anyway.

Oxford Brookes rowing has had quite a few issues lately but they are one of the top places to row. Places like Loughborough and Durham not so high. Each Uni seems to be strong in different sports so if dc are good ar a sport it is worth looking at the uni league tables for that sport. If at elite level then contacting the coach at each uni, ds did this and it can help with an offer. Ds rows at a high level and also used info from other rowers on the uni programmes they had done.

I think the cricket thing is because cricket has massively professionalised since the days of eg Atherton and very few top cricketers have actually been to university at all (haven't checked this) or , if they have, it doesn't matter where they went as the county set up is more important. The days of cricket being Oxbridge dominated are also the days that cricket had been attempting to change (not awfully successfully) of cricket being dominated by public school boys.

In terms of most main Olympic sports (including winter Olympics for Bath) , Loughborough and Bath are absolutely like feeder schools.

ETA : not sure Oxbridge let people in now, just because they might be a Blue . Pretty sure that kind of selection has disappeared, probably in the early 90s.

It might have changed from when I went to Loughborough, but you needed far higher levels than A teams at school to get in in the 90s. We needed to have minimum 2 sports you represented your county at, and 1 at regional level. I did go to the hockey trials, and if you didn’t have England U21s, they weren’t interested. It might be worth having a look now if he’s keen.

Depends on whether you’re talking about studying sports or doing it and which sport.
Oxford and Cambridge don’t really feature on swimming for example. That’s Loughborough, Stirling, Swansea, Bath and Birmingham with the biggest ones followed by Surrey, Manchester

I’m not sure if you are talking about getting in to Lboro to study or to play for BUCS ?

To study - obvs no need to be sporty tho you will need strong grades (subject dependent) from AAB to Astars.

If you do mean to play for BUCS teams there, it depends on lots of things. The requirements will vary from sport to sport. Yes, to do the 100m sprint at BUCS outdoors you need to be running at national standard (by which I mean, strong enough to run in the UK champs). And ds2 didn’t get into the footy squad - tho tough competition for that is common in a lot of unis IME.

But if you want to do a less popular sport there’s space. Ds2 switched to American footy and the squad will usually include all who are interested. Three years ago they won the BUCS trophy and everyone got game time. There will be other options too for sure.

And even if you don’t compete, you can train using world class facilities, compete intramurally, get involved in the media work, be on the committee, just play for fun. Sport for all is a massive focus, including disability sport.

(you can ofc do all kind of other things at Lboro uni. It’s not just sport haha)