Sports Awards was held back on the 23rd of April and was a great evening all round, celebrating our sports teams' and individuals' achievements over the 2017-2018 season!!
We kicked off the evening with our Team Player of the Year awards, which identify a member of the team who has demonstrated outstanding performances over the entire season and have made significant improvement in their ability over the year!
Team Player of the Year winners were as follows:
Then we moved onto our Unsung Club Hero awards. These awards recognised those who have gone above and beyond their expected responsibility as a club member!!
Unsung Club Hero winners were as follows:
After our Inter-Club awards, we then began announcing the winners of our 6 main awards of the evening, which were chosen by the Students' Union! We started with the Edge Hill Student Community Sport Award. This award is for an individual who has gone above and beyond trying to develop their sport at both Edge Hill University and the local community.
For the first time, we actually had TWO winners for this award as it was impossible to decide between them! Our first winner was Mel Mitchell from Women's Hockey. Mel has organised many charity events throughout the year and has gone out of her way to get as many fellow students and club members involved in her work as possible, to ensure the events were extremely successful. At Christmas, she organised a Shoebox Collection in order to help the homeless people out on the streets of Liverpool. She managed to get a HUGE collection together with a total of 60 shoeboxes, which was a great help to those in need during those tough Winter months!!
Mel Mitchell collecting her award from Jenny Winrow.
The second winner of our Edge Hill Student Community Sport Award was James Wright from Men's Rugby Union! Like Mel, he has also been involved in a LOT of charity work this past season. James, with help from the whole club, has organised multiple Help the Homeless events in Liverpool, handing out food and warm clothing to those needing it most. They also organised a Rugby match, where all of our Rugby Union players wore bright pink socks in aid of Cancer Research UK. As well as all of this, he has also been promoting the charity Mind by hosting events and matches through his sport.
James Wright collecting his award from Gareth Lougher.
Our next award of the evening was our Sports Personality of the Year Award. This award is to recognise the achievements of a top student sports performer within their own competitive field! Our winner was Lucy Lucketti from Netball and this is because she has achieved SO much in her career so far! Over the past few years, she has been selected for; her Greater Manchester County side; Manchester Thunder's U17, U18 and U19 squads; and most recently, she has been selected for the Northern English University team, which is an amazing achievement!!
Lucy Lucketti collecting her award from Dan Bocharnikov.
Our third award of the evening was the Dan Logan Memorial Cup Award: Outstanding Contribution to Team Edge Hill. This award is presented annually in memory of Daniel Logan, who was a student at Edge Hill and a Rugby Union player. He sadly died in 2003 after a two week battle with testicular cancer. However, his dedication to developing sport at Edge Hill will never be forgotten. This award is presented to an individual who, like Dan, has gone above and beyond their expected responsibilities. Our winner was Sam Pierce from Men's Table Tennis! He has regularly competed at a high level in a number of different sports and when he came to University, he got Table Tennis up and running, pretty much starting the club from scratch. Sam set out to ensure that they were going to be a club that regularly competed in BUCS and without him, the club wouldn't be where they are today and wouldn't have won their league after winning every single game this season!!
Sam Pierce after collecting his award.
The next award was for the Outstanding Individual BUCS Entry. This award recognises someone who has competed and excelled in an individual BUCS sports event! Our winner was Chris Heaton who is a track cyclist. He won a GOLD MEDAL in a recent Indoor Track Cycling event. This involved a flying 200m time trial, of which he was the fastest qualifier with a time of 10.799 seconds. Chris led the competition throughout the day and amazingly took victory in the final!
Chris Heaton collecting his award from Dan Bocharnikov.
Our penultimate award of the evening was for the Most Improved Club of the Year. This award was presented to a club who have shown great improvement over the past season. Our winners were the Women's Hockey Club!!!!! They had gone from being ranked 95th in the Country and 25th in the North last season, to 53rd in the Country and 13th in the North this season, which is an incredible achievement and shows just how hard they worked with both their 1st and 2nd teams to achieve this. Both teams this season also won their BUCS leagues, meaning that they'll be looking at promotion for next season!
Our Women's Hockey Club after collecting their award.
Finally, our last award of the evening was the Team of the Year Award. This was presented to a team who have shown outstanding dedication to their sport, have shown consistant levels of participation and development and have excelled in performance, representing the University in a positive light! Our winners were the Women's Badminton 1st team!!! This team have made AMAZING progress over the past few years and this season has just completely topped it all off. In 2016, they finished 3rd place in Northern 3A. In 2017, they finished 1st place in Northern 3A, being promoted into Northern 2A. And in 2018, they finished 1st place in Northern 2A!!!! This team have had an incredible 3 years and thoroughly deserved to win this award.
Our Women's Badminton 1st team with their award.
From everyone here in the Students' Union, we want to say a HUGE well done to all winners and to all of the sports teams in general! It's been a great year, filled with highs and lows (and also some arguments with BUCS and opposition teams), but we got through it in the end... just about. Thank you so much to everyone that made this season, Sports Awards and Varsity so thoroughly enjoyable. Now really, I know I keep saying it, but this IS the last report you'll have from us for a while. But we WILL see you in September...
#TeamEdgeHill #CelebratingSuccess