Michaelmas is all about trying new things. New friends, new challenges and new experiences (whether or not the urban floor of ‘Atik’ will ever truly live up to its illustrious predecessor remains to be seen). With this in mind, the Cherwell Sport team has trodden the path less travelled to bring you some sports outside the limelight for the new, the curious or the bored.

Fencing is not, it turns out, just an opportunity to recreate your favourite Lord of the Rings scenes. Dating back to the 14th century as a practical way to teach duelling, the past few years have seen the sport evolve greatly and it is now an Olympic discipline consisting of three separate weapons (épée, sabre and foil) and a variety of rules and styles. Novice fencing is often regarded as an achievable blue and the Oxford University Fencing Club boasts considerable success in recent Varsity fights.

Founded in 1981, OUFC is now one of Britain’s oldest and most successful fencing clubs. This year sees the 109th Varsity encounter against Cambridge as the Dark Blues struggle to reclaim the varsity crown.

Featuring actual weaponry and a natty all- white ensemble, many people see the sport as a niche pastime. With a second team named the Assassins, one might easily assume it is a sport for a select few. “Not so”, OUFC secretary Liam Stigant explains, “OUFC is a great place to learn or come back to the sport, catering for all skill levels – from beginners, for whom we run a year-long training course, to more advanced fencers, many of whom compete to high standard nationally and internationally. The diverse range of standards means you’ll never feel out of your depth but also that there will always be a more experienced fencer around to give you some advice and help you develop.”

OUFC also offers a free taster session on the Sunday of freshers’ week for those interested and the beginner’s course from 1st week onwards, all kit is provided by the club and training is conducted by qualified coaches. This focus on attracting new members extends even to their Varsity match towards the end of the year.

If you are a fan of running about with a ball and bumping into other people, rugby isn’t the only sport which you can play in Michaelmas. Oxford University Australian Rules Football Club (OUARFC) has been the home of Australian football in Ox- ford for nearly 100 years since the 1920s. First brought to Oxford by visiting Australian students after the Great War, it is now one of the University’s oldest varsity contests, as well as one of the more august Aussie rules associations outside of Australia. Aussie Rules Football, also referred to as “footy”, combines both ball skills and teamwork with agility and fitness.

“A fast growing sport, with teams in over 50 countries” explains president Eugene Duff to Cherwell. “The OUARFC men’s and women’s 2015-16 season is set to be a cracker, with games against UK teams in Michaelmas and Hilary terms as well as a European footy tour at the end of Hilary term”.

Everyone is welcome to an open training session at 2pm on Sunday the 11th of October (meeting at Keble Gate of the University Parks on Parks road). So whether you’re a guy or a girl interested in learning how to kick and handball with pin-point accuracy or try to take a “screamer” (leaping high in the air on someone’s back to catch the ball), or just want to have a fun time with a bunch of friends then, says Duff, “Aussie rules is for you”.

Long-distance athletics has always had a strong, if underappreciated, presence in Oxford. Cross-country shouldn’t just be consigned to rain-drenched secondary school memories of being shouted at by a PE teacher as you stumble around the quagmire that used to be a sports field, argues men’s captain Aidan Smith. “Cross country is running off-road. Some of us try and do it quite fast. OUCCC is a club for all runners, whether you’re just starting jogging, or, like some members, are dreaming of Olympic glory. The club’s main aim is to beat Cam- bridge in our varsity matches at the end of Michaelmas (and have fun doing it).”

The recent London Marathon, which doubles up as a varsity, saw the Dark Blues truly show up their Tab coun- terparts, taking the fastest times in both the men’s and women’s categories. Cross-country, it transpires, is not just about the fitness. There are weekly coffee dates and lunch trips, frequent crewdates, three-legged pub crawls and a night introducing any American students to The Inbetweeners. The club runs training sessions every day of the week, from a Friday social run to more intense long runs Sunday morning, and a freshers’ run is 4pm on Sunday 11th at the Rad Cam.

Sport at university can sometime seem elitist and intimidating. However, as these passionate and enthusiastic groups have shown, even the most ca- sual of casual sportspeople can find fitness, competition and community in the places they least expected it 

Beth Nichol is a woman with a lot on her plate. As captain of Blues netball this year, she’s been organising training and trials for three weeks already, preparing for an exciting but inevitably challenging season ahead, whilst the rest of us are still recovering from summer fatigue. We caught up with her to chat about the season ahead.

“It’s looking really good – we’ve just had a couple of sessions for fitness, doing some sprinting, basic ball skills and gameplay,” she told Cherwell. “It was interesting, actually – I had to plan the sessions and we let our trialists come to preseason in order to trial them for longer. Everyone’s picked up really quickly so it’s looking good for our intake this year.”

This year’s team seems to compare favourably with those of the past. “I think that we are on the up, I hope!” an enthused Nichol told Cherwell. “Obviously I would say that. A few years ago we lost a few big players who’ve been in the squad for a while and then last year was quite good because there was a lot of new people – maybe we didn’t achieve as well but it was a good year for development and a lot of people are getting trained up.

“So this year’s going to be good, because we’ve got a lot of people with experience al- ready. The people coming in look quite good, too, so hopefully this will be a successful year for us.”

As with all other University sports, the Varsity match with Cambridge is the one that draws the most attention every year. Nichol certainly hasn’t let it slip out of her mind amongst the chaotic first weeks, although as any captain would, she preached about a steady approach, taking each match one at a time. “We’ve already started talking about how we’re going to shoe the Tabs, but obviously that’s a long way off. We’re in quite a tough league because we got moved up to Midlands 1A so I think our first step is to try to compete well in our league. We will play Cambridge this year because they’ve moved up as well and we’ve got a meeting in three weeks, so we’ll see how that plays out.”

Of course, Cambridge isn’t the only team on her mind – with perennial powerhouses Loughborough looming in their first match, Nichol hopes the team can start the year with a resounding victory to kick-start their campaign.

Nichol spoke to Cherwell after she had just finished a sprinting session with the rest of the team. As someone who’s usually exhausted getting a sandwich from Tesco after a day in the library, I asked her what it was like being a student-athlete here at Oxford. “It is quite tiring. You have to learn how to balance your schedule quite well. I do physics, so it’s hard because I have a lot of contact hours – going to lectures after three hours of training is a little bit grim. I’ve had to learn time management, which I didn’t necessarily have before and was slightly detrimental to my studies in second year, but I’ve pulled it all back together so that’s good.”

On a personal note, Nichol has not let the pressure of being a blues captain get to her. “It’s quite fun because obviously I have more control, and because my committee’s really nice and we get along really well with Vicky (OUNC President) heading that up,” she says.

“I’m more nervous going to sessions because there’s more riding on it for me obvi- ously – every session I have to turn up with my A-game and be positive and make sure everyone’s involved. It’s a challenge, but it’s fun!”

“Challenging but fun” may well define the Netball Blues’ season this year, but if hard work really does pay off, then it’s hard to see why success can’t define it either 

In 2013, 32 million unique viewers tuned in to the finals of the League of Legends World Championships – more viewers than those of game seven of the NBA finals in the same year. The following year, the same finals were held in the football stadium that hosted games in the 2002 Football World Cup, capable of holding over 40,000 people.

eSports are coming, and they’re coming fast. It’s becoming more and more legitimate each and every day, shattering traditional perceptions of what constitutes a sport. Or does it? Let’s break it down – what is a ‘sport’?

Sports traditionally have been thought to require a degree of physical exertion. There really isn’t much of a case to make for eSports here – although to be fair it does require a degree of stamina to sit in front of a screen for 15 hours at a time regularly. But if this is really a crucial criterion, one that must be fulfilled in order to legitimize an activity into a sport, then please can someone explain to me the discrepancy in physical activity between computer gaming and snooker or darts. Yes, of course two wrongs don’t make a right, but nevertheless it does indicate the futility of denying eSports the right to consider itself a sport simply because its athletes do not live up to our traditional physical ideals.

Sports obviously require skill. Anyone who’s ever played a video game knows that there are inevitably good players and bad players, with the occasional bad player who thinks he or she is good mixed somewhere in between. What sepa- rates these groups is ultimately skill – your ability to react, to make winning decisions and to execute. According to BBC, eSports players can make more than 300 ‘actions’ per minute within a team framework, far more than the average human being, whilst other studies indicate that those who game frequently have markedly better mental agility and reflexes.

One of the reasons we enjoy playing sport is undeniably the unique experience of teamwork and strategy. As with any competi- tive activity, teamwork and strategy feature heavily in eSports, and is what separates the world-class teams from the average ones. In 2012, the Taipei Assassins pounced on Azubu Frost in the League of Legends World Champi- onships due to their tactical manoeuvres and unprecedented strategies. Teams dedicate en- tire months to practising and investigating their opponent’s weaknesses and strengths, not unlike what a football team or a rugby team would do to prepare for a tournament.

So maybe eSport has been a sport by definition all along – it’s just that people have been unwilling to acknowledge it as one, perhaps due to preconceived notions that computer gamers just cannot be athletes or simply that people should not rely on gaming for a legitimate living.

All I know is this: growing up, I always wanted to play games for a living but my par- ents, like most parents would, persistently told me that computer games were just a distraction. Yet here we are, living in an age where eSports are amongst the most followed sports globally, with athletes hauling in unbelievably early fortunes.

Times are changing.

Technology is extending its roots into the foundation of all that we do, and there is no reason to believe that sports should be an exception. So brace yourself – in a few decades, maybe we’ll all be tuning in every year to watch athletes display unparalleled levels of talent not on a pitch or in a gym, but behind a screen 

The University football squad have been back in Oxford training hard for the new season.

The Blues, led by captain Alex Tsaptsinos, have been integrating a large number of new players this year. They got off to a winning start in their first pre-season game away at Brunel University.

With five debutants in the starting lineup, the game could’ve easily escaped the Blues from the beginning. However, after five minutes, they were one up; captain Tsaptsinos got his reign off to a great start with a driven finish from the edge of the area following some good build up down the left by Brook Tozer and Blues debutant Adriaan Hilbers. After Blues dominance for the first half an hour, Brunel achieved parity with a long ball over the top and a composed chip over goalkeeper Blane Scott.

The game started to become stretched prior to half time and the Blues lost two players to injury, debutants Henry Smith and Tom Faktor. This brought another debut from Cian Wade, in the unfamiliar position of centre back. The injury drama increased as Blues stalwart centre back Michael Moneke then went down after dislocating his shoulder. Half time was a welcome break.

Moneke lined up for the start of the second half, playing through the pain he was clearly in. After twenty minutes, though, his shoulder dislocated again. Nevertheless, the Blues carried on for the rest of the game with ten men as a training exercise. In the interim, man of the match Sam Gomarsall finished off another great move down the left flank. Rising like a salmon after a cross from Mike Feeney, he beat the keeper with a powerful header for his first goal for the Blues in 25 appearances.

Some good defending from the Blues and hard running up front from Ed Mole and James Somerville ensured the game finished up 2-1.

The Centaurs (University 2nd team) were also in action with a new captain, Joe Fowles, as well as a new coach, Nathan King. After an intense few days of training, the Centaurs were handed their first pre-season challenge in the form of the Lloyds Insurance team, who made the long and convoluted journey to Pembroke Sports Ground for the occasion.

The Centaurs were clearly the better of the two teams in the opening exchanges. Dan Brown and debutant Callum Akass deserve an honourable mention, dominating midfield and looking comfortable on the ball.

This sustained midfield pressure led to the first goal, John Dinneen practically tying the defender’s shoelaces together and leaving him no choice but to bundle him over in the box. Dinneen stepped up and calmly slotted the re- sulting penalty; making the score 1-0 the break.

Though two goals before the break by an increasingly confident Lloyds side made the final score 2-1, the Centaurs put in a confident performance and should be proud of their first outing 

This summer saw some remarkable ten- nis as the men and women of Oxford University Tennis Club (OUTC) experi- enced continued success in both the national league and Varsity.

In the build up to the summer season, both Blues squads travelled to the Kiwi Tennis Club in Melbourne, Florida; five days of clay-court tennis that provided twelve of the club’s best players with a fantastic opportunity for some intensive training in the Florida heat. Even after this sun-drenched excursion, however, the training regime refused to relent, with preparation for Varsity involving the training regimes of all squads being intensified, with both the courts at the White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre in Abingdon and the grass courts at Iffley being put to near-constant use. Upon returning to Oxford, fixtures against sides including the Army, Cumberland, Hurlingham and North Oxford as well as the biannual Old Blues match all served as important preparation for the Varsity match.

Such intense preparation paid dividends. Though the men’s Blues team approached the courts at Moor Park with nine consecutive previous defeats in the fixture, a great effort on the first day took the team to a 9-3 lead, with club champion Matt Morrow sealing the 11th and winning rubber for the Dark Blues after winning all of his matches. Captain Zeb Nicholls lifted the trophy after an impressive overall 13-8 win which capped off an unde- feated season for the team. The hard work on the court paid off for the women’s team as well, pulling away as the pressure rose to win 13–8 after a tie of 8–8.

The women’s success was continued by their thirds (‘Swifts’) as they stormed towards a 13–8 victory. The 2nds (‘Robins’) played well but were undone ultimately by some brilliant tennis by their Light Blue counterparts, slid- ing to a 7–14 loss. The men’s group ultimately went one better, the 2nds taking no prisoners and winning 17–4, with a special mention to first years Angus Nicholson and Shunta Takino who each took an impressive five out of five rubbers on their Varsity debuts. The success was followed by the 3rds’ 12–9 triumph and the 4ths (contesting their very first Varsity) taking a strong 7–2 win, leading to a clean sweep of four out of four Varsity matches for the teams in Dark Blue.

Such impressive performances were not consigned just to Cambridge, however. Under the inspirational leadership of captain Mal- lika Sood, the women’s Blues team achieved promotion from the Midlands 1A into the Premier South Division, with Sood solidifying their victory by winning the final match 7–6 in the final set. On the men’s side, the 1st team consolidated their position in the Pre- mier by taking fourth in the division, whilst making the quarterfinals of the cup compe- tition and losing out to a strong Durham side. The men’s second team had an outstanding year topping their division and winning promotion to Division 1 where they will be one of the highest ranked university second teams. They also won the Midlands Cup after a nail-biting final against Birmingham’s first team.

From early doubts about the sound of the new turbocharged V6s to the dominance of the Mercedes power unit, the 2015 season has been dominated by engines. We untangle the soap opera that is the Formula 1 engine supply story.

Mercedes AMG have again enjoyed near total dominance, running away with both world titles with their engine having started the season an estimated 100 bhp up on rival engines produced by Renault and Honda. Williams, also running the Mercedes power unit, have had the edge on Red Bull throughout the year owing to their strength on high-speed tracks like Canada and Italy. Mercedes have also just signed a deal to supply Marussia with engines which should give F1’s perennial minnows hope of beating next year’s rookies Haas F1 in the battle at the bottom.

Thankfully for fans, Ferrari do seem to have closed the gap from 2014, although Singapore remains the only race where Ferrari appeared to have the stronger package – with wins in Malaysia and Hungary more due to team and driver error at Mercedes respectively. The rate of improvement has perhaps been most encouraging for the Tifosi, given that in-season testing will be banned from next year barring renegotiation.

The rift between Renault and Red Bull has been covered by the media like a celebrity divorce. The partnership that, less than two years ago, brought home a 4th consecutive world championship began to deteriorate when both Team Principal Christian Horner made public the team’s frustration at the lack of progress Renault had made with the new breed of engine. Tired of being the scapegoat, Renault threatened to quit F1 before deciding to instead buy back the Lotus team that has struggled since being sold by Renault in 2009. Having burnt their bridges, Red Bull turned first to Mercedes to negotiate a deal for engines in 2016 but were rebuffed by Mercedes team principal (and Arzoo regular) Toto Wolf – presumably fearing being beaten by a car with not just a top engine but also a chassis designed by Adrian Newey. Red Bull now must make a deal with Ferrari or risk leaving F1 altogether, or worse, getting engines from Honda! With the cards firmly in their hands, Ferrari agreed to sell engines to Red Bull but only their current 2015 engines rather than the developed 2016 version being sold to Toro Rosso and Sauber. Recent rumours suggest Ferrari would be willing to do a deal including the mercurial Max Verstappen, with Kimi Raikonnen’s seat up-for-grabs in the near future. With Red Bull ‘serious’ about their threat to quit F1 if they do not have a competitive engine, it’s going to be a case of who blinks first. Bernie Ecclestone has also now entered the engine politics, with coverage of Mercedes and Ferrari cars conspicuously absent during the Japanese Grand Prix in a bid to pressure them into a deal.

If Red Bull-Renault has been the perfect marriage gone wrong, then McLaren-Honda has been the story of a failing marriage that everyone is pretending is OK. Everyone except the drivers.

‘This is embarrassing. Very embarrassing.’ said Alonso over team radio in Japan with all the frustration of a man for whom this team and engine is his last roll of the dice to find an elusive 3rd championship winning car. With the current state of the Honda engine this might turn out to be an impossible dream.

McLaren ended their partnership with Mercedes this year knowing that they had to try something different in order to be able to fight Mercedes own works team for the championship. Harking back to the early 1990s and one of the best partnerships in F1 history and an Ayrton Senna in his prime, the deal generated a great amount of interest… and an even greater disappointment. Perhaps limited by the rules regarding engine development, Honda have produced an engine that has left one of F1’s great constructors wallowing 2nd from bottom in the constructors championship. It is set to be a long winter for Honda.

We can cross our fingers that the competition will be tighter for 2016 but at least be safe in the knowledge that there is only another year till the 2017 rule changes and the deck is shuffled once more.