Scottish Ultimate: 2024 Club Season (so far)

This weekend, UK nationals will determine the best ultimate teams in the country across all three divisions – open, mixed and women – with 8 of the top teams fighting it out for the trophy (at division 1). Scotland will be well represented across the open and mixed divisions, with 5 teams heading down overall; Alba and EDI in the open division, and Heck, GUX and GUXYZ in mixed.

With each season comes new challenges, and this season is no different. This year, as well as coping with changing rosters and injuries, teams have the added pressure of the new EUF ranking system which has completely changed the season calendar. If you’re wondering what the EUF and/or ranking system is, we’ve put a brief, simplified explanation below. You can get more information here. 

The EUF is the European Ultimate Federation, in charge of ultimate across Europe. In previous years, club teams would qualify for the European Championships via a bid system. For example, if the UK mixed division had 3 bids, the top 3 mixed teams at nationals qualify for Euros (there’s the exception of wildcards but we’re keeping this simple). 

This year, it’s all quite different. Those teams interested in attending Euros had to register as an EUF team and apply to attend EUF tournaments – Spring Tour, Elite Invite and Summer Tour. Other tournaments throughout the year, such as regionals and nationals, are EUF-approved. Therefore, if teams want to, they can use games played at these tournaments as ranking games, so long as their opponent has also opted to do so. Alba, Heck, and GUX are the Scottish EUF teams this year.

Each team is ranked according to how well they play against other EUF teams across the whole season. The ranking system is based on a complex algorithm, but essentially, it’s like swiss draw in that the more points you score and the less you concede, the better. If you play well against a strong team, this benefits you. If you play badly against a weaker team, it’s probably not great news for your ranking. You can keep up to date with the current ranking here.  

We have mixed feelings about this new system, which seems the case across the whole ultimate community. The new format makes the season more expensive and condensed due to the requirement to fit in at least 10 ranking games each. And due to the format of the UK club season, there aren’t many opportunities to strengthen your team before the first EUF tournaments in April and May. Plus, there’s an added pressure to the season with the sentiment of ‘every point counts’ never ringing more true. But for others, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it should ensure that the best teams in Europe attend Euros, making the season and Euros itself, even more competitive. 

But, enough about the ranking system – the main event is the Scottish club teams heading to compete at nationals! We’ve put together summaries of roughly what’s been happening for each team so far in the season to keep you all in the loop, so read on.  

Open 

Alba

The 2024 season so far seems like it’s been tough for Alba as they’ve fallen victim to the new ranking system, with their less-than-ideal performance and poor attendance earlier in the season hanging over their heads. 

Following their strong performance at Euros last year, where they placed 7th, they were eligible to attend Elite Invite in May, which they did. The team was missing big players such as Andrew Boxall, Cameron Mackie and John Stainsby, all people you would probably want on your team at an elite-level tournament. This resulted in a relatively rookie squad being sent to face off teams such as BFD La Fotta and Mooncatchers, so it’s not a huge surprise that Alba struggled to score more than 9 points in each game. They did, however, end the tournament on a high with a 15-12 win against Jetset.

Cut to regionals a while later, Alba had a successful first day conceding only 6 points in total, proving their ability to get the job done when needed. In the semi-final, they did well to not let either the wet weather or pressure get the better of them when playing SMOG, taking them to the final. But their winning streak ended when they played reigning national champions Chevron Action Flash, a big loss which, together with their performance at Elite Invite, has adversely affected their EUF ranking. 

Alba has a strong squad heading down to Nottingham for division 1 nationals, which includes GB squad members Camy Agnew, Joel Terry, and Andrew Dick, being some of the most talented players in UK ultimate right now. They’ll be starting the tournament with a game versus Smash’D, which will hopefully give them confidence ahead of a matchup against European champions, Clapham. We back them to place well this weekend, however, with both Clapham and Chevron not using nationals as a ranking tournament, it may be too late to resurrect their ranking. 

We’re yet to see the impressive Alba we all know and love this season, but hope to see it this weekend along with the fond sound of bagpipes echoing across the pitches. They’ll be off to Summer Tour in August, which hopefully won’t be their last tournament of the season. Best of luck, lads. 

EDI

At northern regionals, EDI held seed at 9th, one place higher than last season. They had quite a few close games which ultimately ended in losses: they were neck and neck against Cambridge in a low-scoring game, with tight scores against both Lemmings and LLLeeds. Their game against Alba showed there’s quite the skill gap between the neighbouring teams, but they did manage to get a couple of points on the board. 

It may be that Alba’s growth and Heck’s creation have been at the expense of EDI, with most of their stronger players leaving for the former, and even more committing to the mixed division this season. Regardless, it’s encouraging to see the squad still motivated to train and compete, which certainly aids the development of the sport in Scotland. 

EDI will be going into division 2 nationals as 7th seed, where it’s likely we’ll see many more close games. There’s great potential for EDI to climb the ranks and break seed if they want to, so stay tuned.  

(We reached out to EDI to find out more about their season so far and their roster, but unfortunately hadn’t heard back ahead of publishing. We wish them the best for this weekend and hope to see more of them, perhaps at UKU Leicester August Edition, hint hint!)

Mixed 

Heck

New team Heck arguably started the season off a bit shaky at their warmup tournaments, with several losses against weaker teams. But, they’re called ‘warmup tournaments’ for a reason. Any nerves Heck may have had then were gone by the time northern regionals came around, where they achieved their season goal of qualifying for division 1 nationals. Not only that, but they made it to the final after a win against GUX in the semi. They made a smart move to pick up Alba alumnus Fraser Stewart ahead of the tournament, who together with Alex Hiley, helped dictate Heck’s offence. Whilst reaching the final was a big achievement, their struggle against Lemmings when they got there perhaps made it clear they still have a long way to go in terms of squad development. 

Going into the weekend, they’re seeded 3rd and find themselves in a pool with reigning European champions, Deep Space, whose squad is looking even stronger than last season’s. Luckily for the Scots, they have a game against Newcastle Brown beforehand, which may act as a warm up before what should be a much tougher match-up later in the day. As well as the aforementioned Fraser and Alex, other names to watch this weekend in the Heck squad are ever reliable Harriet Hopper and newcomer, Logan Norris-Lambe. 

Following their regionals results, specifically the universe-point win over GUX, Heck has now shot up to 2nd in the EUF rankings, so there will be a lot of eyes on them this weekend (and it looks like they’ll also be on the ulti.tv livestream). But with this being the only ranking game they’ve played so far, their position could soon change drastically, with most other teams using nationals as a ranking tournament. 

Regardless of specific scorelines, qualifying for division 1 nationals and being in with a proper shot at the European Championships in their first year as a club ain’t too bad. Next month, they’re off to Summer Tour in Freiburg where they’ll face European teams for the first time this season. 

GUX

GUX started the season strong with an exciting trophy win at Spring Tour in April, shooting them up to 3rd in the EUF rankings and putting them on the radar of other European teams as one to watch. This big result gave GUX a confidence boost ahead of northern regionals, where they knew the toughest games of the weekend to be against Heck and Lemmings. After a tough loss against Heck in the 2 v 4, their low morale followed them into their second day, hindering them in their game against Lemmings. They finished the weekend in 3rd place, and it’s unlikely that was the result they were hoping for. 

A few days later, a chunk of the squad plus two GUXYZ pickups set off to Windmill in Amsterdam. The tournament was a mixed bag for the team; whilst there were some huge plays and strong performances, the squad suffered several male injuries, some of which were carried over from regionals and others occurred during the weekend. Their overall result probably wasn’t as high as it could have been, and it’s likely these injuries played a large part in that.

After taking some time to reset, GUX will be heading to division 1 nationals as 5th seed. Looking at the schedule, it’s not really the best place to be. They’ll have to beat either Lemmings or Reading if they want to finish in the top 4, but there’s no reason why that’s not possible. The squad is looking strong if you ignore the several shoulder injuries of their male contingent and instead focus on key players like Beth Dimitrova, Shaun Webb and Hannah Millard being in attendance, plus GB under-20 star Angus Bain stepping up from the training squad. 

Their choice not to use nationals as a ranking tournament will surely only help them this weekend, taking a significant weight off their shoulders. But no doubt they’ll be spending the weekend wondering if that was the right choice. After nationals, they’ll head to Summer Invite at the start of August, which will essentially be Nationals 2.0 from looking at the other teams in attendance.

GUXYZ

Another brand new team for this season is GUXYZ. The team was initially intended to be Glasgow’s ‘second team’, but since then they have carved out a whole new identity for themselves, as an inclusive and competitive development team.  

Their tournament debut was at Manchester Mayhem and whilst their games ended mostly in losses, they certainly demonstrated their potential, as most of these were close games. The team’s focus on spirit paid off as they came away as spirit winners, which is a great result for any team. 

These results ought to have given XYZ a boost ahead of regionals the following month. Whilst they had some decent scores and comebacks, in the end, they finished in 7th place. This meant they missed out on division 1 nationals qualification which arguably, was possible. It’s likely their limited experience and inevitable developing chemistry led to this result. Although, whilst researching, we noticed that out of the 3 Scottish mixed teams to play Lemmings¹ at regionals, XYZ had the second best result, so take from that what you will.

They’ll take their regionals experience to division 2 nationals, where they will come up against well-versed opponents such as Oxford and Flyght Mixed. Up-and-coming players such as Gavin Angus and Katie Henry are ones to watch, as well as more experienced players, Phoebe Kwok and Rob Avontuur. 

XYZ is building strong foundations for the future by providing opportunities for less experienced players across Scotland to play a full club season, however there’s certainly space and potential for them to increase the intensity by taking on elite ultimate in the future. Following nationals, they’ll be attending UKU’s ‘We All Play Mixed’ event in August. 

Good luck to all teams competing at nationals this weekend! It’s always great to see so much Scottish representation, because after all – no Scotland, no party. Keep up with what’s happening throughout the weekend with the division 1 schedule and division 2 schedule, and watch out for livestreams on ulti.tv. If interested, here’s what went down at regionals.

Footnotes:

¹ Lemmings won northern regionals and are likely to find themselves in the nationals final, so, they’re a pretty good team.