#bqc2016

The HogYork Horntails before this year were a small, struggling force. With only a skeleton squad and a lack of tournament experience, we had difficulty making inroads into the quidditch rankings. After a change of captaincy in summer 2015, and a good number of freshers joining the squad in early October, we took a promising team to Northern Cup 2015 at the end of October. Our talent was promising but our inexperience showed, and we lost all our matches, finally ranking 12th out of 15 teams. However having a working team now allowed us to compete at other, smaller tournaments, finishing second in the Leeds Eggnogg tournament in December, and winning the lower bracket at Derby's Compass Cup. In addition, many players attended mercenary tournaments individually, gaining experience and Christmas Cup in Warwick and Valentine's Cup in Oxford. Training weekends with our local experienced team Leeds Griffins and the high ranking Durhamstrang gave us plenty of improvement. We went to BQC with a lot of hope, but expecting little, and little was expected of us, having been dismissed into a UK 27th rank.

Saturday was group stages, with teams split into 8 pools of 4 teams each, each pool containing a 1st seed team, a 2nd seed team, and two unseeded teams. After each team played the others, the teams would rank 1st-4th based on number of games won, with points difference deciding rank in case of a tie. The two top teams in the pool would qualify for the upper bracket, and the lower two for lower bracket. So on Sunday, 16 teams would play knockout matches in both brackets. Who played who would be decided by ranking all teams by their overall points difference from the first day (although PD is capped at a maximum of 150 per match - a team could score 300 points over their opponent but only 150 of these would be counted in the rankings calculation). A better PD would guarantee a better draw, since rank 1 would play rank 16, rank 2 would play rank 15, and so on.

York were placed into pool E, we (Northern Cup 12th place) and the Manchester Manticores (Northern Cup 14th place) being the unseeded teams. Our first seed was Southampton Quidditch Club Firsts (SQC1), the defending champions of BQC 2015, who placed 3rd in the most recent Southern Cup. Our second seed was Falmouth Falcons, Southern Cup semi-finalists who placed 5th.

Our first match was against Falmouth. Since we expected to lose to SQC1, this match would determine whether we qualified for upper or lower bracket. After a shaky start, we warmed up and matched them goal for goal for much of the game. A goal is 10 points and a snitch catch is 30, so we didn't want to catch the snitch unless we were within 30 points of Falmouth. The difference kept changing between 30 and 40, so we were constantly changing tactic. After a delay to the game due to a hole in the pitch, we lost momentum and Falmouth pulled away. Eventually they caught the snitch, making the final score Falmouth 170* - 70 York (* denotes snitch catch).

We next played Manchester. Though we quickly pulled ahead outside of 30 points, we wanted to maximise PD for a good draw on the Sunday, so we refrained from attempting a snitch catch until we would hit the 150 PD cap. Our final score was York 170* - 20 Manchester.

Our final match was SQC1, who had earlier beat both Falmouth and Manchester by around 200 points. We should have expected much the same score, but we gave them a run for their money! With the knowledge that losing was near inevitable, our aim was to minimise PD as much as possible. We scored no goals, but our quick snitch catch ended the game at just SQC1 120 - 30* York!

With an overall PD of just -40, the news came through late Saturday night that we ranked 3rd in the lower bracket (19th overall), with was fantastic news! This meant our first lower bracket match on Sunday was against Keele's second team the Keele Krakens, who placed 14th (30th overall). The game was by no means easy, we were all aching, but we didn't let a goal in and final score was York 150* - 0 Krakens!

Our quarterfinal opponent team would be either the St Andrews Snidgets, or Southampton's second team (SQC2). Since they were playing straight after us, we watched their match and zeroed in on strengths and weaknesses of both teams. After the Snidgets went to victory, we later played them in our quarterfinal, a good match eventually won York 100* - 20 St Andrews.

As semi-finalists we faced the Brizzlebees, the second team of the Bristol-based Brizzlepuffs Quidditch Club. Brizzlebees had ranked 2nd in the lower bracket, so were the favourites, but only by a slim margin. Brizzlebees were the first and only team we faced at BQC that we had played before, beating them at Compass Cup. The team roster was slightly different, but we knew their strengths and weaknesses. Cheered on by our friends from Leeds and Derby, we smashed them! York 120 - Brizzlebees 50*! We were finalists!!

Our rivals for the title, and favourites, were Taxes Quidditch. This is a team made up of older players, graduates who had to move away from the teams they had played with at university. Taxes don't have a base, just organise regular training together at different places around the UK when they can. They may train together less often, but are of course made up of very experienced payers. Taxes had ranked 1st in the lower bracket, but had been expected to the make the upper bracket. An unlucky defeat had caused what many called "the upset of the tournament" by placing them outside of the top 16. It was going to be a challenge. Their supporters were loud and numerous, as they all had good friends in other teams, but our support group including our great Leeds and Derby friends would not be outshouted! The match was close. We were all tired and made mistakes, and Taxes managed to pull ahead and stay there by 30-40 points. When the snitch was released, we managed to bring this down to 20 - and the snitch was ours! Had we just won? But no - the catch was no good, the snitch was reset, and play resumed. The points difference went back to 30-40. Then they caught the snitch - but thankfully it was another illegal catch. The tension was unbearable. After one catch by Taxes, the chances of them managing it again were just too great. Our seeker went for the snitch when the score was Taxes 100 - 70 York. The catch made it 100 each - we were going to play overtime. We could have tried to keep defending the snitch and bring the score down to 20 points difference again, but to looked unlikely to happen. We were tiring and losing our structure. Forcing it to overtime would mean we got five minutes to refresh ourselves and have another team huddle to talk tactics. In a normal match, the snitch is released after 18 minutes, and the match ends when it is caught. In overtime gameplay, the snitch is released after 30 seconds. Overtime ends after five minutes of play, or when the snitch is caught again, and the team with the most points is victorious.

A goal immediately after the restart took York 10 points ahead - but before Taxes had even attempted a goal at our hoops, the snitch was ours! As the referees discussed the legality of the catch, players on the pitch had to remain in place, whilst York substitutes and friends huddled with arms around each other at the edge of the pitch, hoping. When the whistle signal for a good catch sounded, we roared and screamed and sprinted onto the pitch, mobbing our captain and seeker in a massive group hug. Before long most of us were crying and a lot of hugging happened! The final score was York 140** - 100 Taxes.

We had been disappointed not to reach upper bracket, but after this I don't think any of us would have traded the prestige of reaching the top 16 for this win. At the end of the day we received an engraved glass plate trophy.