Last weekend 72 students attended the AoC National Championships in Nottingham. The championships are one of the largest annual sporting events in England, involving over 1,800 college students and 200 staff. This is a wonderful opportunity and great experience for our students to compete at the highest level in college sport and to meet other sports people from all over the country. British colleges from England, Scotland and Wales compete over three days in over 20 sports, each sport accumulating points for their region, which in turn contributes towards the ultimate prize of being the best overall region and being awarded the Wilkinson Sword.

Ross Morshead, Faculty Head of Sport said:

Having gone away with them, it once again reminded me how beneficial experiences like this are for young people and I am just so pleased to be part of a college that acknowledges and supports this type of wider development. I have already had several messages of thanks from both parents and students as well as a video of congratulations from a current England Hockey player!”

The championships were held at Nottingham University from the 20th -22nd of April. Exeter College had 72 students form part of the South West team who they represented in Netball, Womens Hockey, Womens Rugby, Basketball, Tennis, Table Tennis, Badminton and Cross Country.

Amongst a range of great performances, the highlights for the college were:

• Womens hockey – winning the gold medal and being confirmed as the best college team in the country;
• Netball – claiming the silver medal losing just one game (and the team's first loss this year);
• Womens Rugby – finishing joint first and receiving the silver medal on points scored behind a combined Welsh college team (last year we finished 7th).

On this occasion unfortunately, the South West did not reclaim the Wilkinson Sword. This went back to the South East, but as a college we had an incredibly successful weekend. The students were a credit to their teams and our college. Congratulations to everyone involved.

If you are interested in studying sport at Exeter College please take a look through our courses here. Information on our Sports Academy is available here.