Frisbee Varsity: Leicester’s Jesters Best the Rest

The University of Leicester’s Ultimate Frisbee team, the Jesters, trounced their De Montfort University rivals on Wednesday with a sizeable score of 14-3, retaining the title of varsity champions.

The victorious Jesters with the Varsity…erm…Trophy.

What exactly is Ultimate Frisbee you may ask? The rules are simple: the aim is to catch the frisbee in the end zone to score a point.  However, you’re not allowed to run with the frisbee and you can only keep hold of it for 10 seconds.  The first team to score 14 points wins the match, with half time being whenever a team reaches 7 points.

The two teams met in Nelson Mandela Park to compete for the highly prized varsity trophy (well, more of a frisbee in a tyre), and proceedings kicked off at 2:00pm.  Leicester dominated the first half, managing to score 7 points and keep a clean sheet at the same time.  The DMU team, despite not being favourites (they were apprehensive before the match about not even scoring a point – known as being ‘bagled’ in the Ultimate Frisbee world), didn’t let the scoreboard get to them.  They had a few unfortunate drops and put up a spirited effort, managing to score 3 points in the second half.  However, although they forced Leicester to stay on their toes until the end of the match, a dramatic comeback wasn’t on the cards.  The Jesters finished the match after an hour winning 14 points to 3.

John Corke won the most valued player for Leicester, with Russell Clayton Dooley winning it for DMU.  Leicester’s Club Captain and top scorer of the match Alex Maskell was thrilled with the day’s result: ‘The whole match was really well spirited with people running hard as they could, throwing themselves around, and generally getting muddy. DMU had a few unlucky drops and probably should have scored a few more points, but we were really clinical on the disc.’

The Jesters’ season has been one of the most successful in recent memory, coming 7th in the Indoor Nationals winning the University BUCS points, 2nd in the Mixed Nationals, and have qualified for the upcoming Outdoor Nationals coming 3rd in the Midlands region.

Photographs courtesy of Jonny Singh.