Varsity Day

In short, Varsity Day is all about sports and pints. Absolutely nothing else matters on Varsity Day.

In previous blogs, I have mentioned that The University of York has different colleges within the university: Derwent College, James College, Vanbrugh College, etc. are all examples of some colleges that students are apart of while pursuing their degree. Furthermore, each college has their own team for “blank” sport where they compete against the other colleges at the university. The end goal is to narrow down the best college per team so that team can play in Varsity Day.

I gave a slight description of Varsity Day earlier, but the real deal here is that Durham University (a uni about 45 minutes north of York via train) has the same college system that York has. While York narrows down the best college per sport, Durham does the exact same and the top teams get together for Varsity Day! The location of the games alternates between the two school, but this year it was at York.

Derwent College (my beautiful amazing bestest college) was battling for the title in men’s rugby, handball, and darts so the floormates and I had a long day ahead of us.

Rugby was the first of the day, so to properly prepare, we went to the campus bar for a couple of pints followed by a short trip to the campus market for some tinnies (British slang for pint beer cans). The bare necessities (the simple bare necessities) for a rugby game to be fair.

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, the weather was wet, cold, and very windy but the mood in the air was per adrenaline! All of Derwent was standing along the side of the pitch cheering their heads off and this remained the entire game! The stamina of British fans is truly something special.

After a long and rigorous game, Derwent pulled through by one point with only two-minutes left! Everyone ran onto the pitch, screamed, hugged, and celebrated for the awesome win!

Shortly after, we all walked across the fields to the athletic center for some good ole handball! Has anyone ever said, “good ole handball?” Do people even know what handball is? I had no idea until I saw it. It was extremely confusing. To me, it was basically basketball but with no backboard and a hell of a lot more fouls. We were all just kind of sitting there trying to figure it out together, but none of us really did. We lost miserably in the end, but it was okay because we had an hour and a half for pinting before darts!

Now darts was supposed to be the highlight of the games. It is the last event of the games and everyone goes. The entire Derwent football team and rugby team were there to watch this riveting game of darts! Again, has anyone ever said, “riveting game of darts?” To start each match (??? no idea what a round of darts is called) the announcer would call the players names and their chosen nicknames. It was a flawed system from the start because the players had to walk right next to the entire football team and they are RUTHLESS. Poor Durham players… Some really hilarious and cringe worthy chants though. In the end, Derwent annihilated Durham!

To end Varsity Day, everyone goes out to the bar/club called Revolution in center city and just celebrate the games. York won this year’s Varsity Day and I must say I was very lucky to have been here for it! Varsity Day = York Champs