John’s Ultimate Frisbee team clinches victory in the College League

The Ultimate Frisbee team have come out on top of the College League after beating Downing College in a highly competitive final.

Ultimate Frisbee originated in the United States in the 1960’s and is a passing game not entirely dissimilar to netball.  The seven-a-side sport with mixed teams is non-contact and players must not drop the disc or take steps whilst holding it.  Points are scored when one team catches the disc in the opposing team’s end zone and the game is self-refereed, relying on the sportsmanship of players to maintain fair play.

The team at St John’s, which has been running for the past eight years, battled it out with Downing College in a close-run final on Coldham’s Common. David Bossanyi, Team Captain and a physicist in his third year at St John’s, said: “It was an extremely windy day and getting dark as we were half an hour into extra time and deadlocked in a four-all draw.  The way scoring works meant that the first team to six would win and we were at a disadvantage at this stage in the game as we were playing upwind.  At the last minute the team pulled out all the stops and scored twice in quick succession, securing victory for St John’s.”

The Cambridge College League is made up of solo College and multi College teams, plus graduate and non-student teams, and has a regular schedule of league matches and tournaments. The League provides players of this increasingly popular sport with a chance to work on their skills.

Ultimate Frisbee at John’s is open to all current students, including those who have never played before, and the current team is made up of a diverse range of male and female graduates and undergraduates.  Matches normally last for an hour and a system of unlimited, rolling substitutions that can be brought in during a game means that everyone gets a chance to play.

The team runs training sessions and competes in matches throughout term time. “We keep things running all year, even during exam time,” said David. “Exercise is really important when you have a busy work load as taking an hour out to do something physical makes you so much more productive.”

More information on the rules of Ultimate Frisbee can be viewed here: http://www.strangeblue.org/rules-quick

To find out more about Ultimate at St John’s, visit: http://sjcufs.soc.srcf.net/index.html

A full list of the sports clubs on offer at the College can be found via: http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/sport-st-johns