UCLU and RUMS Sports Set To Merge?

The fate of the historical UCLU and RUMS segregation in sport will be decided today at a meeting between UCLU and BUCS officials.

An Emergency General Meeting, consisting of around 40 students and union officials, was called yesterday as UCLU was given an ultimatum by BUCS (British Universities & Colleges Sport) officials about the segregation of main university and medical school teams in BUCS leagues across the nation.

The struggle to leave “every avenue open to keep both clubs separate until the last minute” will come to a close today as BUCS demand a final decision, having left UCLU pondering over what were effectively two choices involving their sports clubs since July 2011.

The first option would be to merge administratively, meaning that for clubs like Hockey and Men’s Rugby, the RUMS and UCLU 1st teams will become 1st and 2nd depending on which one outperforms the other.

This, as well as diminishing the historical rivalry between university and medic clubs on which many teams thrive, may create administrative issues for Captains and disable more than two teams from being in the same league, whereas before two UCLU teams and two RUMS teams could potentially coexist.

The second option states that UCLU and RUMS must stay completely separate meaning that there can be no crossover of medics to UCLU clubs who compete in BUCS leagues.

This would leave many clubs like Lacrosse and Women’s Rugby who don’t have RUMS counterparts badly affected, with medics unable to compete in many fixtures and so missing out on their chosen sport.

However, an amendment to the second option was proposed which would allow medics  to choose which ‘side’ they belong to each year. This would cover them to play for either UCLU or RUMS in BUCS competitions but not for both. The following year they could switch their allegiance. However, this would still mean that they could be members of clubs from either denomination and compete in the new LUSL (London Universities Sports Leagues) unaffected.

Many other universities nationwide including Kings, Cardiff and Imperial are also faced with the same decision as BUCS has been piling on the pressure to phase out medics’ “sister” clubs and merge them with their main university “parent”.

At the EGM, the majority of attendees were RUMS students who would be most affected by the proposals – especially those who wish to compete with both UCLU and RUMS teams in BUCS tournaments which were an agreed minority.

However, from all people present, a unanimous vote was cast for UCLU to push for the amended Option Two. If rejected by BUCS, UCLU will have to settle for Option One which would change UCL sport forever.