Competitive Quidditch has transitioned from the fictional grounds of Hogwarts into a fully fledged competitive sport as teams from around the World prepare for the Quidditch World Cup in Germany.
UK teams including Bangor Broken Broomsticks, the Cambridge University Quidditch Club, Durham Direwolves, Holyrood Hippogriffs, St Andrews Snidgets and Keele Krakens now compete in the British Quidditch Cup, the country’s main tournament where all thirty-two teams compete for the title of champions. The best players of these teams are then selected for the Team UK squad, who then fly to Frankfurt to play in the Quidditch World Cup against the best players in the world. The community had been expanding rapidly year-on-year, garnering interest from the media on the tournament.
Quidditch is a full contact, mixed gender, co-ed sport adapted from the game played in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. It is a high octane game combining aspects of different sports like handball, rugby and Dodgeball. These diverse elements make Quidditch a challenging and physical sport to play. From an outsider’s perspective, the game can appear chaotic and confusing, however, with a grasp of the rules, it becomes an incredibly exciting sport to take part in and spectate.
A new film documenting Team UK as they head to Germany has been created by a team duo from Leeds. Fly the Movie: Journey to Frankfurt, will follow Team UK from early 2016 – where many compete in the British Quidditch Cup – through their training in Durham and Oxford, to the Quidditch World Cup in July. From this perspective, the movie will explore the harsh training of the sport, to the open and kind-hearted nature of the community, to the question of whether quidditch can be treated as a legitimate sport.
Caroline Taylor and Jennie Grimes were excited about the campaign’s success: “I was speechless when we reached our target – I’m so proud to be a part of a community that can come together to support something like this. Hopefully our film can inspire everyone to get active and get involved in Quidditch. We can’t wait to get stuck into making the bulk of the film in the coming months, especially in Frankfurt in July.”
