At the time of writing, the Vice Chancellor of York University, Brian Cantor, is celebrating his birthday (many happy returns to him). I was thinking about what present I should give to the Vice Chancellor of our opposing institution, and then it hit me. The best present possible would be the Carter James Trophy; letting him see it for a small number of days before the Red Rose Army and its supporters reclaim it and make the overall Roses score even.
This term will see the build up to the biggest away Roses that Lancaster has seen in many years and I’m really looking forward to seeing just how good we can be. With a disappointing term due to cancellations and poor weather behind us, we must now refocus and bring our determination and skill to the fore. York are determined to follow the trend of a home win, so much so that they have set the first event of the Roses weekend as possibly the biggest match of the entire competition – Mens Rugby firsts. The match will be played at Huntington Stadium, home of the York City Knights. In this 3,500 seater stadium, York University will witness the demolition of not just their favourite team, not just years of dominating this fixture, but the entire Roses weekend too. Our currently undefeated Mens team are looking to this fixture with the aim of righting the wrongs of last year’s ever-so-close defeat, and their confidence is certainly there for all to see. I hope this confidence is not just within our Rugby team however; many more of our teams are capable of destroying the White Rose as we saw last May and, regardless of how this year’s fixtures have gone so far, it is definitely still possible.
I hope to get around and see lots of our teams train and play this term as BUCS only runs for the first two terms of an academic year so, technically, this is my last BUCS term, but that doesn’t mean that the drive and determination should be any less than at the very start of the year. I will be doing all I can to ensure a Roses victory, both in my position as Vice President (Sports) and as a member of the American Football team – and I hope all other members of the Sports clubs can do the same.
