** Congratulations to Newcastle - tournament champions and hosts for next years event! **
** Please go here to the webpage for the 2010 tournament in Newcastle! **

On Saturday 15th August the first UK Maths Postgraduate football Championships took place. Eight teams made the journey to the Sports Training Village at the University Of Bath, two from the university itself, two from Bristol, one from Newcastle, a team from Imperial, another from Reading, and one who made the trip all the way from Dortmund. Despite hinting at rain for most of the day, it stayed away and the sun shone throughout.


A format was set up so that every team played six games. First of all there were two league groups of four, before a sort of knockout stage. 
Matches lasted 25 minutes with no half time, and were kept to schedule rigorously by the organisers. Referees were provided by teams resting. 
The first set of matches kicked off at 11:30 and from then on 12 league games were fit in on two pitches until lunch at 14:30. Big Red Machine (Bath's first team) and Newcastle dominated their respective groups, whilst the rest fought more closely for second place. Games were competitive but good natured, with referees rarely having to intervene.

There was a break for lunch at 14:30 until 16:00. By now, with each team having played 75 minutes of football, legs were beginning to feel the toll, but the important matches were still to come. The knockout stage now began, with the team in 1st in league A playing the team in 4th in league B, and so on. There were excellent games throughout, yet somehow no two teams managed to draw, keeping at bay the dreaded penalty shoot out. Newcastle and Big Red Machine battled their way to the final, in which Newcastle managed to edge a 2-1 victory after stunning goals from both sides. Photos and results can be found on the relevant pages.

Football over, the teams advanced into the centre of Bath for a meal and drinks to round off a successful tournament. Newcastle as champions have offered to host the tournament next year. We hope the tournament grows from here and continues for years to come.

(Thanks to Oli Saunders for the report.)



The championships were an official event of the University of Bath Postgraduate Association (a part of our Student's Union).

Essentially the idea for the tournament came from a group of maths postgrads at the University of Bath, who play in our local intermural league. We decided to steal an idea from the German mathematics football championships i.e. to challenge the other UK mathematics departments to play us in a tournament to decide the least bad UK maths postgrad football team (2009).

We hope that this event will become a similarly successful tradition as in Germany and keep attracting 7-a-side teams with a wide range of abilities, home-towns (and genders). In principle, teams will consist of current maths postgrads and staff, but the occasional ringer will not rule your team out either.

More details about the tournament can be found on the Details and Rules page of this website but if you want to know more, please contact us  either on email or on Facebook.

** Please go here to the webpage for the 2010 tournament in Newcastle! **

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