Scottish Club Season 2024: Heck

By Cameron Dick and Alex Hiley

For those who aren’t aware, 2024 was the first season for Heck. After several successful seasons of leading single gender club teams (EDI & SCRAM) to Nationals and Worlds, we felt that there was a growing desire from local Edinburgh players to start a new adventure. After many late night discussions about the future of local club ultimate, we realised that it was time to join together and establish a new competitive mixed club team in Edinburgh. Thus, Heck was born.

Our main ambition for the club was to try and qualify for mixed club Euros within two years, using the 2024 season as a “suck-it-and-see” period to test the waters and understand the ambitions of a new player base. As part of our first year goals, we simply had our sights set on qualifying for UK Nationals, but would have finished the season happy if we had established the bones of a strong squad and formed new friendships*.

By the time trials rolled around, we were elated to welcome over 70 trialists for our inaugural season (and a little relieved that people wanted to play frisbee with us). After watching so many diverse and talented players from as far reaching as Aberdeen and Newcastle battling it out, the season committee (incl. Hilary Hulmes, Thomas Trim, and CJ Song) were delighted that the level at trials truly was of a competitive nature. Selections are never easy and the whole process took over 10+ hours of discussion across 3-4 days to finalise some very difficult decisions.  

Following selections, the club began preparation for the UK series. Our early tournaments at Uni Fans and Manchester Mayhem were never about individual results or placing high in the tournament, but instead our focus was on building cohesion, forming new connections, and understanding what each player could bring to the table. We knew that if we could nail down the fundamentals and build chemistry by playing solid mixed ultimate, the results would follow. On approach to regionals, the season committee realised that they had built a heckin’ great squad. 

At UK Mixed Club Northern Regionals we had our first truly competitive outing with ambitions of qualifying for Div 1 Nationals. All of our hard work ultimately paid off as we won games against more established clubs, finishing in second place, qualifying for Nationals, and tentatively claiming the title as the best mixed team in Scotland. Due to the new EUCF ranking algorithm, these results propelled us up the leaderboard to (briefly) sit as the second best mixed team in Europe.

UK Nationals brought a whole new kettle of fish as we were now looking at competing at the highest domestic level. The weekend brought a mixed bag of results, but overall the team felt proud of securing a couple of crucial pool play wins and feeling like we put our best foot forward against teams that regularly compete at Euros. Whilst we didn’t have any team-oriented expectations for placing at nationals, we were ecstatic to finish as the 4th best UK mixed team, retain the title as the 2nd best Northern mixed team, and accumulate some essential points in the EUCS structure. 

Our momentum continued past Nationals and we turned our eyes to potentially qualifying for Euros by competing in the EUCS Summer Tour event in Freiburg, Germany. This turned out to be a fantastic decision as: a) the team had such a great experience playing a wide range of international teams whilst soaking up the sun and enjoying the beauty of Freiburg and b) the club’s results at this event led us to qualifying for the European Championships!

As leadership, we could not be more proud of the group of athletes who stuck with us all season long, working hard both on and off the pitch to represent Heck in its first season. It presented so many learning opportunities both for our athletes and for our leadership, and it gave us an insight into what can be accomplished with this programme. We are grateful for the opportunities we had this season and proud of our teammates for earning those opportunities. We cannot wait to see what lies ahead for 2025!

*Or at the very least, new acquaintances.

***

If you’ve been tempted by what you’ve read, you can sign up for Heck 2025 trials here!

Featured photo by Ellis Stabler @unstable.shots.