Friday 05-02-2016 - 16:50

 

Sport is a really important part of student life for many GCU students and it’s something our Blue and White Army make a lot of noise about.

 

GCU has had many sporting achievements over the years, including Olympian Anna Sloan competing at the World Student Games and many team successes in BUCS competitions.  Our students are always proud to represent their colours in BUCS competitions. So, what makes sport special at GCU? The answer …. The Blue and White Army a.k.a our Sports Club members!

 

With over 730 students at the heart of our student led sports clubs, our sport is exactly what our students want it to be. GCU has 38 sports clubs on offer to students from the traditional sports such as football, rugby and hockey, a wide range of martial arts including; karate, muay thai and tae kwon do, a number of individual sports; boxing, fencing and table tennis, through to our more adventurous sports; kayak, Snowsports and surfing, we have something for every student to get involved in.

 

2015/16 has seen our students take sport to the next level with 6 new sports teams affiliated, including being one of the first universities to recognise Esports as a sports club, and a new funding model which puts development at the forefront of our sports clubs, sport at GCU is on the up!

 

Neil Alexander, Vice President for sport, explains; “This year we have made some very positive steps to the support of our Sports Clubs including improving our funding model, ensuring facilities are the best we can possibly get and listening to our students to find out how we can keep improving.  We aim to improve the standard of coaching given to students and to look to increase the range of activities run to encourage more students to get involved in sport and physical activity at GCU.”   For example our hockey clubs have recently upgraded from sand based pitches at a local school to the world class water based pitches available at the National Hockey Centre, used during the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

 

Working with our new clothing supplier, Raging Bull, and backed by funding from the university,  we have created a new design for our team playing kit and this has given our clubs a unique identity and increased the spirit that binds our teams.

 

With the recent success of our Women’s Volleyball, Netball, Football, basketball and golf teams all winning BUCS titles and cups in the last two years sport at GCU is on the up and the army is marching!