The creation of the Northern English Universities Trampolining (NEUT) league marked a new chapter for Lancaster University, as our Trampolining Society was invited to participate in competitions up and down the country.
Having won the last four Roses competitions successively, the Trampolining Society had the chance to prove themselves on a national level against the very best. The team got off to a flying start in their first competitive game in the NEUT league, with Steven Edgar winning a first place medal and Katie Grocott a third place medal in Loughborough on October 31, 2010.
The Trampolining Society were back in action little over a month later in the three day long Manchester Open Competition from 3-5 December and carried on from where they left off. Lancaster won another first place medal, this time with Geoffrey Pogson, and Katie Grocott continued her good form with a runner-up medal. This feat was replicated by Kat Halliday, Lizze Spence and Rachel Page. The collection of these medals meant that Lancaster finished in first place as a team, their first win in the NEUT; a significant breakthrough.
Back on home soil a week later in the City of Lancaster Winter Tariff, December 12, Lancaster kept up their winning sequence. With Amanda Pedder and Emma Dootson claiming third place and Cassie Street picking up a runners-up medal, Kat Halliday and Victoria Benyo took the glory in a successful team performance, finishing in first place for synchronized routine.
As if all this wasn’t eye-catching enough, Lancaster will be travelling across the Pacific to face the cream of the crop from University Trampolining teams from all over England, Ireland and Wales in the Irish Student Trampolining Open competition. This huge competition is held at Dublin City University from March 24-27.
The story doesn’t stop there. Since trampolining was added as a sporting event to the prestigious annual Roses competition against York in 2007, Lancaster have won the last four and will no doubt be ardent to make it a perfect five wins in a row. The incentive will be all the huger given that Lancaster presently only stand one win behind York (23 wins to 22 in York’s favour) in the overall results table since the competition began in 1965. President Katie Grocott stated that “next year with the opening of the new sports centre, the society will have competition standard beds, rigs and a high ceiling so will really be equipped to unleash the full potential of our members which is extremely exciting”. Before going on to add “We are really looking forwards to Roses this year as we remain undefeated and are training hard to maintain this tradition and to once again show York how it’s done”.
Away from the competitive side of things, the Trampolining Society has a busy schedule. Training takes place on a Monday from 8:45am-11:45am and 7pm-10pm on a Tuesday, with extra sessions held from 8pm-10pm at Lancaster and Morecambe College. Grocott said “Absolutely anyone is welcome to come along, train and get involved whether it be purely social, to keep fit, to enter competitions or a mixture of the three”.Opportunities to join this promising, up-and-coming Society are understandably limited, with only 15 places currently left. But on the evidence of the Society’s huge success in the last four Roses tournaments and the chance to complete five successive triumphs, coupled with the more recent national success, who would pass up the opportunity to help Lancaster University Trampolining Society make further history?
