Quidditch in 2020: What We're Doing Right and What We Can Be Doing
/Cameron Walker is one of the co-coaches for new club, Eastern Sydney Universities (previously UTS and UNSW). In this article, he questions whether quidditch is doing enough to be returning to sport under the pandemic conditions, as many other community sports in NSW have done. He also expresses concerns over the impacts of the pandemic and lack of gameplay on recruitment, suggests solutions, and goes on to describe the successes ESU have had over the last several months in keeping trainings going, keeping players motivated, and continuing to prepare for potential games in the future, with the hope that other clubs, similarly impacted by the pandemic, may be able to learn from what has worked for ESU.
2020 has probably been the craziest year in anyone’s lifetime, and we’re barely in September. Life as we know it has been transformed as we try to return to normality. For quidditch, we are only now beginning to see play in Western Australia, with every other state struggling to return to the tournaments we all are missing. But what can we be doing to work further towards a return to play? In addition, at the start of the year, there was much discussion about getting quidditch registered as an official sport with Sport Australia. If we were to continue with that process, would we be confident in saying that quidditch has been working hard to return to its status as a sport, or will we still be viewed as a trivial game?
I believe there is a lot more we can and should be doing to return to a sense of normality within quidditch. Obviously the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted pretty much everyone’s way of life, and has similarly affected quidditch. But it only takes a drive around a local field on a Saturday morning to pose the question – why are they playing and quidditch is not?
Cam Walker playing for UNSW in 2019 | Photo: Willem de Gouw Photography
Every Saturday morning for the past 1-2 months, Saturday sport has returned to almost normality. There are a few restrictions in place however – 1 spectator per child, social distancing rules still apply etc, but if these organizations can get their respective sports back up and playing why can’t we?
Now I’ll be clear I’m not aware of the inner workings of Quidditch Australia at all, but from an outsider’s perspective it does pose the question of are we really doing everything we can to have a tournament right now in NSW, or any other state for that matter. Contact sports such as Rugby and AFL have returned as normal, with minimal if not no restrictions applied to the actual gameplay of those sports, who have significantly more contact associated with their gameplay than Quidditch.
Community Sport has been permitted in NSW since July 1st, however, Quidditch Australia and Quidditch NSW decided on July 21st to tighten restrictions again in response to the rising case numbers from the Crossroads cluster, with concerns for a second wave in NSW | Photo: Quidditch Australia Announcement
I’m sure that even though contact is a big issue in preventing tournaments, it’s not the main one. In my eyes, there is a more influential concern within the quidditch community as to the hosting and participation in a tournament. The tournament locations are usually out West in NSW and require teams to travel reasonable distances to engage, especially for ANU and Newcastle teams. While this cannot be directly solved, I do have a few solutions to discuss.
As I mentioned before, the pandemic has created new opportunities for quidditch that we should be taking advantage of. One such opportunity is the increased availability of fields for hire that are closer to the CBD and the slight reduction in costs of these facilities. I have already looked into securing the David Phillips sporting facilities located about 1km from UNSW main campus for a tournament planned in October, with the fields being available for the entire day that day. Although pricey, this venue has been used in the past for a tournament in 2016 and State Shield in the same year (before my time, I only heard about this). Securing fields in areas closer to the CBD would also solve the problem of travel for quidditch, with a majority of teams located in or around the CBD, it would make travel less than 30 min for those majority of teams.
Now that wouldn’t apply to all teams, but I do have an alternate solution. Instead of one large tournament for NSW, we split quidditch in NSW up into several regions that encompass teams. For example, the eastern/city teams would play in their tournament, the western teams their own etc. Obviously this wouldn’t be ideal for quidditch, but given the circumstances I think a lot of people would be willing to compromise for this kind of solution.
In regards to the cancellation of tournaments, State Shield and QUAFL, it has been especially hard for people because there has been no replacement event in planning. What I mean is, I think a lot more people would be less disheartened about the cancellation of certain events if there was a replacement alternative announced alongside it. While I do accept it is hard to plan anything in replacement, there have been a few options that I considered would have maybe helped people cope a bit better, it has been hard breaking the news to excited team members. For example, when a tournament was cancelled, why not organise with several teams to do a large training session (within acceptable limits) so that people still have a chance to play quidditch in a large social setting and good intensity level. Additionally, the more competitive people in the quidditch community were quite disheartened at the cancellation of the State Shield. Announcing something like a 2-Round state shield for 2021 to be in the works, something I have considered would be great for state quidditch not only from the 3 main states, would’ve helped a lot as well. This 2-round system would allow different states to all attend the first round as a sort of qualifying tournament, where the best state teams compete to qualify for the final round which is traditional structure. It would mean that states who have previously been lacking in bringing teams to state shield would have a chance to prove themselves on that stage, and would add more organisation to state shield preparations instead of a handful of trainings, the teams would be training basically from March to October, with the first round being in May and second round in October as normal.
Both State Shield and QUAFL for 2020 have been cancelled due to travel restrictions and increasing uncertainty over the conditions of the pandemic in the coming months | Photo: Quidditch Australia Announcement
If we want our sport to not only survive but thrive, future recruitment and retention of new players in 2020 is similarly important. Within ESU, we have had several very dedicated new players who have been training non-stop to try and learn as much about quidditch as possible and grow their skills in preparation for tournaments, and we’ve even been lucky enough to continue to draw new players who are interested in joining and playing. But with the lack of play, how can we motivate these players to stick with the sport, and shouldn’t we be rewarding their efforts to stick with quidditch for this long whilst only having played 1-2 actual games of quidditch? I think we owe it to the new players to do our best to play some quidditch and get a tournament on, if we put ourselves in their position, majority of first year students have basically had their first year experience ruined with no on campus events or classes. If we can make quidditch stand out for them in their first year while everything else hasn’t been that good, it will create a lasting impression and will keep them coming back for more in future years. This should be the goal of the quidditch community regardless - continuing to recruit and grow is the only way to allow for a new generation of quidditch players to rise. One of our ESU players, Kim, is from Switzerland and is an exchange student who has been to quite possibly every single quidditch training we’ve had on for 6 months, and yet she has never played a tournament game of quidditch. She is also scheduled to leave in the coming days to return back to Switzerland, without having played in a tournament. What kind of impression has our actions left on her, will she continue to play quidditch or has this experience spoiled it for her?
Looking towards 2021 as well, the sooner we return to play, the easier it will be for struggling teams to recruit and grow. If we were to have no games in 2020, I’m sure a lot of new players would be frustrated and possibly even leave quidditch for good, whereas if we had play, these new players would be able to help with recruitment because they’ve been around the team for so long but yet only played several games, so they would still have a fresh perspective on quidditch which would be relatable to the impressionable first years of 2021. Additionally, the lack of university events in 2020 might cause older students to want to experience things that they missed this year, another potential source of recruitment.
New Players from USyd and Macquarie enjoying the New Player Game at March NQL 2020 | Photo: Ajantha Abey Quidditch Phototgaphy
In 2020, there has been limited interactions with other clubs. For myself, I have attended several North Sydney Nightmares trainings, but apart from that and the very first friendly tournament in March, I can’t really comment on how other clubs are progressing. But I can tell everyone how the Eastern Sydney Universities club has been handling the pandemic and the kinds of strategies we implemented to keep the team motivated. For those who are not familiar with our new club, the Eastern Sydney Universities (ESU) Quidditch Club is a merge between the UNSW Snapes on a Plane and the UTS Opaleyes which happened at the end of 2019 due to both clubs struggling to enter 2020 with full strength teams. Thankfully, the merge has been working out well, with regular trainings occurring with consistently good numbers and at an excellent intensity level that challenges the more competitive players to perform but at the same time, continues to build and strengthen new players’ skillsets and game experience. We have also established a 2-team structure, with the Dawnbreakers as the A team and the Nightbringers as the B team, both teams having around 12-16 players currently.
During the lockdown period, our trainings were halted and Jackson Flynn and I (co-coaches for ESU) had to determine new strategies for our players to stay fit and healthy during the lockdown so that when we returned to normal trainings, everyone was ready to go and would not get injured straight away. We ended up formulating what was called the ESU Fitness Challenge, where around 3-4 times a week we would post an exercise that people had to complete, with 3 different levels of intensity available which were worth points based on the tier (the tier 3 exercise was the hardest in terms of reps and sets and would be worth 3 points). To motivate everyone into joining into the challenge, we had prizes available such as a free jersey, free QNSW half-year membership and free access to the next paid social event. Each member had to post a video of themselves completing the exercise or send that video to the person who posted the exercise to complete.
This challenge was taken to the next level when the Valkyries Quidditch Club started the pushup, sit-up, and squat challenges for the NSW teams. These challenges saw a significant number of others get involved in the Fitness Challenge, which was great to see. The challenge ended up spanning the time period from end of March to end of June, with the posts not as frequent but we had opened up the posting of exercises to other team members to encourage creativity within the team.
Jackson Flynn, co-coach alongside Cam for ESU | Photo: KS Images
Overall, the team and I really enjoyed the challenge. The people participating all told me that they became increasingly fitter and stronger, and when training returned everyone was excited to come back. The structure of a challenge like this could’ve used some work as some of my posts became less frequent but given the circumstances I thought it was quite successful. Even while trainings are on, a challenge like this for teams is incredibly valuable because it promotes competitiveness within the team as each player thrives off other people’s work to motivate themselves. And when a lot of us are low on motivation for quidditch, finding other ways to motivate your team is incredibly important.
Once training returned, the fitness challenge transformed into regular Beep tests and Sprint-Conditioning training. One of our players who has been playing Soccer alongside quidditch said that he used the Beep test in conjunction with the fitness challenge to maintain his fitness during the lockdown, and encouraged other teammates to join him after training to do a Beep Test. Since then, this became a regular occurrence at any training where we were present and was consistently going for a period of over 2 months. The Beep test was optional to anyone at training, but all of us participating heavily encouraged people to join with us: “The purpose of this kind of exercise is not to compare yourself to others, but to compare your own score to what your score was last week” – Jakob Sutherland.
This regular Beep test helped a lot of us become more fit over that 2 month period, and really carried over to our performances in drills and games as well as overall game stamina. After doing Beep tests regularly for this period, we wanted to diversify and Jakob came up with a Sprint training drill that works similar to a beep test but instead has 2 groups, 1 of which sprints up to a certain point and returns while the other group rests, and repeats that circuit 5 times then a group rest period. For the club, it has been great to have someone like Jakob step up and use his experience of sport outside of quidditch to improve the fitness and endurance of our own team as well as change the team environment to encourage competitiveness and striving for the best possible quidditch performance.
In terms of the structures of trainings and the kinds of drills, we have been trying to implement a balance of drills to extend specific skills, general drills to encourage synergy and thinking between players and then drills to simulate game scenarios. This is the second year Jackson and I have been involved in coaching roles for quidditch, and while both of us are relatively inexperienced compared to the coaches of other teams who have had much longer quidditch careers than us, we try to make our trainings as best as possible by continually asking for feedback and implementing ideas from our teammates into drills for trainings. This way, certain skills we may have missed that some players want to specifically work on, or strategies that our players think will be useful for our team can easily be circulated into trainings. This kind of leadership structure has been really beneficial for our club, as more players feel like their ideas are well received and brings more innovative quidditch ideas into trainings. Players who are even in their first year of quidditch who have had exposure in other sports, or players who have trained under different structures can bring new and fresh ideas into the quidditch environment, without having to worry about “what if a beater beats this person” or “I don’t think that would work because of xxx”. By having this style within your teams, it takes a lot more pressure off the coaching group and allows for a diversification in the style of quidditch that your team plays. Using this, our teams have come up with several plays just based off on people’s ideas and thoughts on how they would want to run an offence. We dedicated an entire training session to people coming up with as many random plays and moves as possible, and then implemented those plays in a game scenario to see how they work out, what we can change and what we can add into the play to make it more adaptable and fluid.
I think the main takeaway is that instead of training and playing how we normally do, we should open our minds up to new possibilities. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, people may have more time for things like quidditch and may relish the opportunity to participate in physical exercise outdoors more, which will naturally attract greater numbers at trainings.
These are just the main ideas I had in regards to tournament play, I’m certain that other clubs have discussed their own thoughts and ideas, and QNSW has a solution in place to try and get a tournament on. But I think there needs to be a bigger push from the quidditch community as a whole. Without the actual sport, quidditch will be viewed as a fun little game that nerdy people are drawn toward. I think it’s time that that perspective changed, and with all the competition in Australia, Quidditch was headed in the right direction. But we’ve veered off course. Without any actual competition, there can be no sport. Can we confidently tell anyone that quidditch is doing its best to return to competition, especially since we are lagging behind almost every other sport in NSW? If we want to be viewed competitively and legitimately then we need to push to have a tournament on. If Saturday league kids sports can find out ways to continue to play sport within the guidelines and laws, then why can’t Quidditch?
This article was written and submitted to Quidditch Australia by Cameron Walker; images and captions were sourced and written by Quidditch Australia.
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Quidditch Australia will be releasing updates on our COVID plans for NSW later today, and additional guidance later in the week.