Archive for category: Gryphon Events

The University of Leeds Boat Club have won Student Sport Team of the Year at this year’s Leeds Sport Awards.

The awards were held last night at the first direct arena in Leeds, in celebration of all the fantastic sportsmen and women across the city and their contributions to sport.

The University of Leeds Boat Club has an outstanding record of delivering performance and participation. Over the past few years the results of crews at the club have significantly improved, going from two semi-finals at BUCS regatta in 2018 to nine last year.

Its elite athlete support helped home grown talent like Matt Brigham break onto the international stage in 2019. The club does significant work in the local community with coaching for clubs and schools and social rowing groups for casual participants.

Club Captain, Ella, told us what it meant to the club to win at the awards;

We feel honoured to be able to accept this award and grateful to be part of a club deserving of it. we are so proud of how inclusive we are. There is somewhere for everyone in this club.

Also highly commended at the awards were rowing scholar Matt Brigham and the University of Leeds Women’s Rugby Union Team. Matt has gone from strength to strength over the past couple of years, and in 2019 beat two-time Olympic champion, Mahe Drysdale, at Henley, as well as winning gold for England at the Home International Regatta.

The Women’s Rugby Union team made history last year as they played alongside the men at Emerald Headingley Stadium in the annual Varsity competition. They are also active members of the local community, taking part in numerous projects and working with local charities for worthwhile causes.

Club captain, Ashley Ross, said;

It was an honour to have our growth and impact as a club recognised at the Leeds Sports awards. We only hope our ethos of inclusivity will continue to attract more females to the game of rugby. It was amazing to see the rise of equality in female sport reflected at the awards with so many amazing achievements by female athletes being highlighted. Events like this will further inspire LUUWRUFC to continue to break down barriers to sport participation and provide an outlet for a diverse group of women to come together, play rugby and most importantly, have fun.

Well done to both our winners and nominees from all of us here at Leeds Sport.

Leeds University Alumna Natalie Haythornthwaite has been inducted into the University’s Sporting Hall of Fame.

Natalie was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Sports Scholars Award Evening held on 14 November, an event which celebrates the successes of all of our scholars who have been awarded a scholarship for the upcoming year. Unfortunately Natalie was unable to attend the evening, but did send us a quick message from down under;

Natalie, who graduated from the University of Leeds in 2014 with a degree in Linguistics and Phonetics, is part of the history-making England Roses netball team who won the gold medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. She has recently been selected again to be part of the England Roses squad who will travel to face the South Africa SPAR Proteas in a three-match test series in a few weeks’ time. In addition, she won the bronze medal at the 2019 Netball World Cup and has over 40 England caps to her name.

Whilst studying at Leeds, Natalie was Vice-Captain of Superleague side The Yorkshire Jets and was named Superleague Player of the Year in 2015. After a brief spell at Manchester Thunder, Natalie joined the newly formed Wasps side and went on to win consecutive Superleague titles with them in 2017 and 2018.

Following success with Wasps, Natalie moved to Australia to play for the New South Wales Swifts in the prestigious Suncorp Super Netball and in September 2019 won the Suncorp Super Netball Grand Final. Natalie was part of the England Roses team which was named BBC Sports Personality Team of the Year in 2018 in recognition of their historic Commonwealth Games gold medal.

You can take a look at the full Sporting Hall of Fame by visiting The Edge. It’s located alongside the sport scholarship board and you can read more about Natalie and all our other Hall of Fame recipients, who include:

• Johnny Mowlem, Geography and Spanish 1998, Racing Car Driver
• Rebecca Gallantree, Sports Science 2005, Great Britain diver.
• Carol Isherwood OBE, History 1982 and PGCE Education 1984, Great Britain rugby union player and founder of the Rugby Football Union for Women.
• Andrew Shovlin, Mechanical Engineering 1995 and PhD in Mechanical Engineering 1999, Formula 1 Chief race engineer.
• Ray French MBE, General Studies 1961, England rugby union and rugby league player, rugby league commentator.
• Giles Long MBE, Geology 1997, three time Paralympic swimming champion
• Simon Mason, Economics 1994, Great Britain hockey player and vice president of England Hockey

Find out more about Natalie by following her on social media; @natsymone @nataliesymone.

The Gryphons may not have retained their Varsity title, however Varsity 2019 shall go down in the history books; our women’s Rugby Union 1^st team played for the first time ever at Emerald Headingley Stadium.

Leeds Varsity is the annual inter-university sports Varsity between arch rivals University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett University. It began in January with the cross country and culminated, as it does every year, with the Rugby Union finale held up at Emerald Headingley Stadium where over 10,000 students cheered on their team from the stands.

Unfortunately for the Gryphons, Leeds Beckett have taken the title for this year. Lydia Evans, LUU Activities Officer said:

“Despite the result, it’s been a great day of sport for the Gryphons and every one of our athletes should feel proud to have represented their clubs.”

However, it was a historic moment for the women’s Rugby Union 1^st team on Wednesday night, as they took to the pitch for the first time to compete against Leeds Beckett in front of the 10,000 strong crowd at Headingley Stadium. Ashley Ross, the women’s captain said:

“The experience of playing our varsity match with such a huge crowd was incredible, and not one that any of us will forget! It’s a special honour, especially for a university team, and it’s especially significant for us as a women’s team as we often struggle to get the same status as men’s sport. It feels like a massive step forward for gender equality and women in sport – not just playing for our team but every other women’s team who hasn’t had the same opportunity as men. Even though Beckett are our rivals, it’s a great achievement for them too. Winning was an amazing bonus on top of that! We’ll all definitely be celebrating tonight! The opportunity to play in the stadium is one we have been working towards for such a long time now so to see it all come together has been incredible. Thanks very much to everyone who came to support us!”

Our Gryphons put on a stellar performance over 60 fixtures including athletics, handball, tennis and lacrosse. Suzanne Glavin, Head of Sport commented;

“I’m really proud of all our Gryphons who played their best whilst representing University of Leeds. It was especially exciting this year to see our women’s rugby union club playing at Headingley with such great support from the student crowd.”

A full list of the results can be found here, and keep an eye out on our social media channels for photos and videos from the day. See you all again in 2020.