With the end of the 5th week of Semester 1 passed, it seems a reasonable time to have a look at how well the Edinburgh University Badminton Club has done so far. It is a fairly straightforward answer to say that EUBC is currently going from strength to strength as both a club and a team. With over 160 fully paid members this year, the club is seeing an increase in membership over the 140 members from the end of last year, and that before the semester is even finished. It is also worth pointing out that this is an absolutely massive increase over the membership from two years ago, when we only had 100. As there is often a second influx of members after “Refreshers Week,” it seems likely that the club will continue to grow.
More than just the membership numbers, EUBC is seeing more people enjoying playing games across all club sessions, even those on Saturday mornings. This increase has also led to more players entering the social tournaments, with 41 club members signed up for Badminton Scotland’s student tournament in Stirling. The increase in membership has seen a dramatic increase in attendance at socials, with the first major badminton social attended by approximately 40 “shuttlers” in a pub-crawl across Edinburgh, with the weekly post session Tuesday night Vodka Revolution session regularly attracting between 20 and 30 for drinks and dinner.
The number of teams EUBC is fielding in various tournaments and leagues has increased with the membership numbers, now with 6 men’s and 4 women’s teams playing in the Lothian League across several divisions. All of the teams are putting in solid performances with good results in the majority of their games. The club also saw the introduction of a second and third team (EUBC 2 and EUBC 3) to the BUCS competition this year, who compete against other Scottish Universities.
The 2nd and 3rd teams are not just new for the sake of new though, and have proved themselves by not losing a single match against an opposing University team yet this year. Our first team (EUBC 1) have matched this, also winning every single match they have played this year. Considering this is against the other top University teams in Scotland, it is an outstanding achievement to be doing so well and the win-to-loss ratio of individual players also seems to suggest that we will not be seeing any change in these performances any time soon.
All in all, EUBC is currently making its way as one of the strongest clubs in the University of Edinburgh with both a large and pleasantly social club, combined with a swathe of strong and successful players and teams at the higher levels.
