So what even is BUCS and LUSL? Great question. BUCS (British Universities and College Sport) is the governing body for university sport and they facilitate hundreds of leagues and national competitions for you to get involved in. This can range from: big one-off events like BUCS Regatta, Individual Championships and Snow & Surf series to the Wednesday and Saturday leagues you've all come to know and love: Come on You Bears. Now LUSL (London University Sports League) is just the smaller regional based format, which hosts a number of leagues for a select range of Sports, predominantly on the weekend.


Fixtures Handbook

Check out the fixtures handbook for more information on how to organise your club fixtures. 


Fixture Confirmation

Every week, we have the pleasure of hosting numerous fixtures for you guys to represent Royal Holloway and don the infamous Green, White & Purple. To make sure you know all the relevant details, we send out a weekly email with this onto captains and opposing teams. Don't forget to check this out as key updates or information are on here for both home and away matches. 


Rules and Regulations

What is fun without a comprehensive set of rules? BUCS outlines key regulations for all activity but also sport-specific. Check these out to get the needed information to help on fixture day and to understand what you might need to do in the event of a rearrangement to completing a playing under protest form. All captains will get a copy of their sport specific regulations and playing under protest forms to take with them to every fixture.


Officials

It is the responsibility of the home team to provide correctly qualified officials for any matches. The level of qualification varies sport to sport and league to league, so it's really important you read the BUCS regulations before booking, or this could lead to an opposition playing under protest. BUCS release a document to help you work out which level of officials you need, but if you still have questions, please get in touch! Officials should invoice the club for the hours worked at each match, similar to other financial invoices, and then they should email it over as soon as possible. Please note that referee receipts for cash payments must be in the correct format and signed by the referee on payment. You can download the form here. Without this receipt we will not be able to accept your expense claim, so please ensure you fill it in.


Team Sheets & Results

You will select your team online on BUCSPlay and each week you will need to create a team sheet from the team on BUCSPlay. All captains will be onboarded to the online system using their university email addresses at the start of the new academic year, and they will then be able to share a link to their team so you can keep all of the relevant players in one place! 


So you’ve played (and hopefully won) your match, what next? You need to tell us about your results, and also submit them onto BUCSPlay before 12pm the following day. If you don't you might incur a fine from BUCS.


Fixture Rearrangement

So there's two parts to every story. So first we have BUCS:


1. Fill out the fixture rearrangement form

2. We will then reach out to the opposition to get this sorted for you

3. Once confirmed, we'll let you know and update BUCSPlay. 

4. If the opposition don't accept the change, the fixture must go ahead otherwise you will concede a walkover. 


The deadline for requesting a rearrangement is the Friday before the fixture takes place (the Wednesday if it's a weekend fixture). After this the fixture must go ahead. 


We operate on a prefer-to-play basis. Your members pay to play and you guys work incredibly hard to support this, so we want to maximise the opportunities you can represent your club. We avoid walkovers, unless operationally necessarily, and this also provides us with good faith from oppositions to support with rearrangements in the future.


We can't always guarantee a rearrangement, so please be prepared to play the fixture unless we confirm with you it’s been moved. We've seen a few on the day drop-outs in the past and this isn't a good experience for your team or the opposition and also impacts your (and Royal Holloway's) reputation. If on the day of a fixture there is a freak snowstorm or raging thunder and lightning, don’t panic! We spend plenty of time keeping one eye on the weather forecast! We might be in touch via email about postponing your home or away fixtures, but this will depend on your sport and the facilities you need to use.


if you concede more than 3 walkovers in one season, your team entries will be affected in the following year.


LUSL

It's down to you to work with the opposition captain to agree fixtures and rearrangements. All LUSL captains will have access to the BUCS platform where they can drop other captains a message to rearrange. Having troubles getting in contact? Let us know so we can tag in to support.


Rearranging a home match? Don’t forget that you’ll need to check that there is pitch space before you agree to host the match on a new date! Nothing worse than 4 teams all turning up for one pitch space on a Saturday afternoon…. Use this live document to see up to date availability of the fixture slots to see if we can host on the day. 


Once you've decided on a day that works, fill out the fixture rearrangement form so we can reserve the space for you. And don't forget to make the change on BUCSPlay!