Quidditch thats a made up sport created in Harry Potter, a series of fiction books right? Well yes it is, but It has also become a real sport with superstar players who play all over the world from The USA, Uganda and of course the home of Quidditch ( At least canonically) the UK.
A brief history of quidditch
You may of noticed I used the un-captitalised version, Quidditch refers to the fantasy sport with flying and autonomous balls, quidditch refers to the real life sport, to escape copyright. Most of the information here can be found at quidditch Wiki If you want to read more about global reach and tournaments.
The sport was created in 2005 at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, by Xander Manshel and Alex Benepe, who later became the first commissioner of quidditch
Alex Benepe, a smart fellow indeed.
The sport has its roots in the United States, but it soon grew internationally, arriving in Canada through McGill University and Carleton University in 2009. It began to take shape around the world with teams beginning in Australia, the UK, and France. It soon spread across Europe and the Americas, arriving in Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. There are now active teams in Malaysia, China, South Africa, Uganda, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
How does one play quidditch?
I'm glad you asked, the basic rules are mostly explained by the help of this handy image. Thanks to the Adelaide Augureys
UK quidditch
Onto quidditch in my country, England as well as the UK as a whole, quidditch is primarily played at university level, with a small number of teams such as London Unspeakables opening their team to all who wish to play, no matter whether at uni, being a community team. quidditch really took off between 2011-2012. It started as just a Facebook group to talk to other players and arrange matches, but as the sport grew it became an official sport body, in charge of organising the national tournament, The British quidditch Championship as well as helping other teams start up with helpful information gained by its founding members, and electing the ever popular Team GB and experienced player Ben Morton as their first president.
Most successful teams
The most succesful team in the UK are one of the oldest universities in the world, based at Oxford University, their team name is the Radcliffe Chimeras, having won 2 out of 3 British Championships List of BQC champions and winning the European equivalent EQC once, and also finishing runners up once List of EQC champions.
Why are you posting about this cp4cfc?
I'm posting about quidditch as I play for Southampton quidditch club, well actually their 2nd team SQC 2 ( inventive name I know). quidditch is a great sport that requires skill, power and speed to succeed, however also welcomes anyone who has an interest in the game and has built a tight knit community that keeps the game going strong.
Winners of Whiteknights III Bangor Broken Broomsticks with myself and my team SQC 2 runners up.
If this has peeked anybodies interest in quidditch here's a great match to watch to understand the physically and skill on display.
Coming up soon is the quidditch World cup in Frankfurt, Germany on the 23 - 24 July 2016, a lot of it will be live streamed, look at World Cup info to follow the hype and find out about results and live streams.