Sport

For me, winning isn’t something that happens suddenly on the field when the whistle blows and the crowds roar. Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream.” (Emmitt Smith, American Football player)

The Men’s Hockey First Team have been religiously training over the past few weeks in preparation to take on the Northern Force of Leeds University. It was through this training that Bath took to the field with an air of confidence that has been characteristic of this team this year.

The weekend of the 13th and 14th February stored a lot of fun for all who went to the regional BUCS Trampolining event in Plymouth. We left during the day on Saturday and made it to Plymouth in time for the warm up where we socialised with the other clubs, and some of the Freshers competing for the first time (Jennifer Spragg, Amy Jowsey and Daniel Stern) got to know other people in their category and learnt about the university competitions.

Its been an exciting and celebratory season so far for Bath University Netball Club. Many teams are enjoying decent cup runs and attractive league positions. Last week saw the 1st team knocked out at the quarter final stage of the BUCS cup away to Loughborough, a close encounter and enjoyable game for the team, that could have easily had a different outcome.

I’ve been told that if Mr Massey got it wrong, he’ll be suspended. I hope he is and I hope it’s for a long time.”

Reading the above, you could be forgiven that the aforementioned Trevor Massey, linesman for the Crystal Palace v Aston Villa FA Cup 5th Round tie, had done something truly abhorrent during the game leading to Neil Warnock, the Palace manager, to say this. Did he officiate whilst drunk? Shout racist abuse at Gabby Agbonlahor? Or maybe, in a fit of rage, he turned around and beat a disabled child with his yellow and red flag?

The Men’s tennis second string advanced to the quarter-finals of the BUCS Trophy with a devastating 10-0 victory over the visiting Bournemouth University Men’s second team.

Their reward for this victory is a home tie against University of Wales Institute, Cardiff 1sts, who defeated London Met 2nds 7-3, on February 24.

Bath will be hoping they can keep the winning habit, having lost their two previous league prior to this cup fixture.

Bath’s women’s volleyball 1sts moved a step closer to defending their title after overcoming their Cambridge counterparts to advance to the quarter finals.

The last eight game will be held at the BUCS Championships in Sheffield on the 12th March, with a potential semi-final the same day. The final will take place two days later, also in Sheffield.

Yet all this talk of Yorkshire would have been irrelevant if Bath hadn’t won, and it certainly didn’t look like that early on as Cambridge took the first set 28-26.

Our first 2good feature this week couldn’t seem more quaint and/or patronising if it tried, but for once in this newspaper, we mean it. So congratulations to Elena Baltacha (pictured, rbotton right, who won the Corning Classic in Michigan , beating top seed Lucie Hradecka in the final. It’s been a great start to 2010 for Baltacha, reaching the third round of the Australian Open, and her success in the US has seen her rise to a career-high ranking of 70. She recently advanced to the quarter-final of the CellularSouth Cup, where she was beaten by Maria Sharapova, the eventual winner.

Bath seconds took on Brunel seconds in the last 16 of the BUCS Cup. This is a knockout competition and the importance of the result was evident in the match. This game was well contested from the start and in the first quarter Bath had serious concerns for their Goal Shooter, Gemma Barclay-Sole, who was knocked down in the Brunel area and feared injured. Fortunately for Bath, who did not have an attacking player on their bench, she was able to continue but this incident and the intensity of Brunel’s play in the first quarter saw Bath trailing 11-9 at the start of the second.

The XXI Olympic Winter Games are already well on their way; they started on the 12th of February and are scheduled to finish on the 28th. The Winter Olympics are being held in Vancouver, Canada, where eighty two National Olympic Committees have entered teams for sports such as alpine skiing, bobsleigh, ice hockey and snowboarding.

Bath should have gone into this match confident of getting a result, having won five of their previous six encounters with the visitors. The pitch was covered with a dense layer of fog and both sides started in a rather disjointed manner, with the visitors more than happy to clear the ball to touch as Bath tried to push forward.