SPORTICIPATE: The Launch

Two weeks ago, The Mancunion SPORT brought you the news of the returning programme of SPORTICIPATE by the University of Manchester, after funding continued to bring recreational sports to everybody at the university! Not only is SPORTICIPATE a fantastic little pun, but it is also a great programme trying to get more people involved in very different sports at the university, and reminding people that very competitive team sports at the university aren’t the only ones on offer.

This week we bring you the news that SPORTICIPATE will be officially kicking off on Saturday 10th October at the Sugden Sports Centre, and they are inviting you. The programme itself is in place to try and get everybody at The University of Manchester—whether it be an Ancient History lecturer, a French seminar leader, or a Dentistry student—involved in sport, all for free!

The launch event will have taster sessions of some of the sports on offer throughout the academic year by the programme. The event will include; indoor cricket (12 – 2pm), korfball (2 – 4pm), volleyball (12 – 2pm), futsal (2 – 4pm), badminton (2 – 4pm), table tennis (12 – 2pm), lacrosse (2 – 4pm), racketball (12 – 2pm) and touch rugby (2 – 4pm) at this Saturday’s event.

The usual weekly timetable will start in the week beginning the 12th of October; an amended* version to the SPORTICIPATE timetable is below:

Last year, SPORTICIPATE was very successful at getting more people involved in their numerous one-off events and usual timetabled events, and this year are aiming to get even bigger.

Each session is led by a student from here at the university, as the aim for SPORTICIPATE is to get everybody included in every capacity of the programme. The one-off events are a great way to try something new too, as last year events varied from Christmas specials on ultimate frisbee and mixed netball, or even human table football. Furthermore, this year there is a current opportunity for a free trip to Jump Nation advertised on the SPORTICIPATE Facebook page.

The programme offers a large variety of sports, including some that most people haven’t tried before. A few examples of these sports are lacrosse, korfball, gymfit, bokwa, bagra, and belly dancing! People come to university to try many different things, so with such a wide variety of very different sports on offer, why not choose one and give it a go?

Equipment is provided and, in a world where a Freddo could set you back half of your student loan, everything is free! The Mancunion will be bringing you more from SPORTICIPATE throughout the academic year, to inform you even more about these different sports and activities.

You can like SPORTICIPATE on Facebook, follow @SPORTManchester on Twitter, and email them about any queries on [email protected].

Enjoy SPORTICIPATing!

*The Mancunion Sport apologises after incorrectly publishing last year’s timetable online two weeks ago.