Sports: Report - Social Sports 2020/21

The newly formed Social Sports Club got off to an encouraging start in Trinity term, despite Covid-19 leading to an early curtailment of planned sessions. The aim of the club is to provide a social space for all Mertonians to participate in sport in a pressure-free, non-judgemental environment, where all students, including those who have little or no sporting experience, are welcome to come and try their hand at both new activities and old favourites. This takes place through in-house sessions, with the sports rotated every week.

We began with rounders, a secondary school favourite for many of us, and followed this session with dodgeball. Dodgeball led to some healthy competition among us and certainly got our heart rates up too. Although the club is primarily a place for in-house sport, some JCR members also took part in an informally organised Rounders Cuppers tournament at University Parks. Despite going out in the group stage after winning one match and losing two (albeit one in very controversial circumstances in the absence of a neutral umpire), we had a great time and look forward to setting up a more formal Merton rounders team next Trinity.

Unfortunately, sessions planned for 9th and 10th week respectively were called off due to the concerning spread of Covid-19 within Merton and Oxford more widely. We had planned to play volleyball and diamond cricket, in addition to continuing our rounders and dodgeball traditions. Hopefully, we can find some patches of good weather in Michaelmas 2021 and Hilary 2022 to get started again but we are looking forward to a more consistent schedule, uninterrupted by the pandemic, in Trinity 2022.

Zak Angell (2019)
Social Sports Captain