York wins Varsity after at least seven Durham teams fail to show up

York have been crowned the 2020 College Varsity champions, following at least seven of the Durham College teams dropping out of their fixtures the morning they were scheduled to be played.

York Sport Union posted on Facebook yesterday morning that seven Durham College teams weren’t going to be participating in Varsity 2020. Football men’s B, basketball A and B, women’s touch rugby B, tennis A and finally pool A and B were among the categories that were cancelled on the morning or re-arranged as a friendly against another York college.

In the post, York Sport Union said that they were “doing everything in our power to sort out friendly fixtures against other York Colleges.” On the original fixture timetable some of the affected matches were scheduled to begin at 11AM, with some colleges being notified at 9:50AM of the Durham college drop outs.

Not all of the fixtures were given alternative matches, with some being cancelled altogether. These included the women’s touch rugby, men’s football and the pool fixtures.

Alcuin Women’s Rugby were told at 9:50AM the fixture against St Chad’s and St John’s from Durham University would not be going ahead. The team were set to make history, with the match being the “first time in over seven years to make it to Varsity.”

The York Tab also spoke to the Vanbrugh Pool team whom were set to play Utinov College at 11AM.

Captain Luke Houlahan told the York Tab: “Absolutely gutted that they didn’t show up, since the whole team has been putting in a massive shift all year and we worked so hard on getting through the playoffs.”

Vanbrugh Pool found out their fixture had been cancelled an hour before it was supposed to go ahead, at which point “most of us were on campus warming up and preparing for the match.” Luke also commented that in the worst case Durham colleges should have at least “given us a day’s notice minimum.”

Constantine Pool also had their Durham competitors drop out, although there was a friendly match rescheduled between Vanbrugh and Constantine, this never went ahead.

Durham’s Grey College also dropped out of the Tennis A match against James College. Speaking to the Head of Sport for James College whom is also the Tennis Captain, the York Tab was told that Durham Colleges hadn’t turned up “because they couldn’t form a team.”

James College ended up playing the Tennis A match against the Durham college B team, winning the match.

Goodricke College were set to play the Football Men’s B fixture at 11AM, an hour before kick off a post on the college’s Facebook page told players not to go down to 22 acres as Durham’s Grey College “had pulled out.”

Basketball saw both Josephine Bulter College and Van Mildert cancel on Halifax and Langwith teams.

Points were still awarded to York teams that didn’t play their fixtures due to Durham colleges dropping out, contributing to the York win.

The University of York won overall with a score of 76-46