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Newcastle VS Northumbria Stan Calvert Varsity has been CANCELLED for 2019

This would have been its 26th year


It has been confirmed that the next annual Northumbria VS Newcastle Stan Calvert varsity has been cancelled.

Northumbria doesn't have enough BUCS teams to compete this year. Newcastle has 90 BUCS teams compared to Northumbria's 45. This means the number of fixtures available is lower than before.

Both Newcastle and Northumbria are hoping that some form of sports competition can be resurrected in the future, but for this year there will be no such event.

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In a post on the Newcastle Uni Students' Union website, students were informed that "the decision has been taken not to run the Stan Calvert Memorial Cup this year".

Stan Calvert was a yearly event which saw sports teams from Newcastle and Northumbria uni play against each other to see who would be victorious in winning the memorial cup.

Over the past 25 years Newcastle has beaten Northumbria a total of 13 times but Northumbria have taken the title for the previous five years. The team spirit seen at the event was always high with students really getting behind their respective university.

Last year the events were more spread out which did see a drop in this enthusiasm.

Raff Marioni, President of Newcastle Uni SU told The Newcastle Tab: "Newcastle University chose to withdraw from the varsity event Stan Calvert on Monday 8th October. This decision was made in light of diminishing student interest over the past 4-5 years as the number of varsity fixtures decreased.

"Clubs were consulted as to whether they wanted to go ahead with the competition and the overwhelming majority didn’t want to. As a university we are proud of our 13 wins since Stan Calvert began and look forward to a constructive dialogue about the future of the competition."

A statement on the Northumbria sport website read "disappointingly, after discussions with Newcastle, they have decided that they no longer want to take part in the competition."

Marc Wood, the Northumbria Student Sport President, said: "I’m really disappointed by Newcastle’s decision as I know taking part in Stan Calvert is one the highlights of the student sporting calendar. We’ve worked hard to convince Newcastle otherwise, including changing the event to make to make it bigger, better and more inclusive for students, but they still don’t want to go ahead. I’m gutted, and I know Northumbria students will feel the same way."