Friday, March 29Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

Tag: Bears Day

Women’s Football – Still Walking on Water
Sports & Socs

Women’s Football – Still Walking on Water

Currently undefeated and top of their BUCS league, Women’s Football’s first team faced Portsmouth in the first round of the South Eastern Conference Cup this Bears day, and were keen to maintain their winning streak! There was no question it would be a fast paced game, with right midfielder Alicia Lyne making some impressive runs down the wing, and setting up a beautiful cross for striker Flora Green making it 1-0 to Holloway in the 22nd minute! Krissie Glover set up Portsmouth’s subsequent own goal from an on point corner and went on to assist yet another Holloway goal placed neatly in the back of the net by Michelle Iversen Badiane in the second half! With Portsmouth having lost one of their best players to injury, as well as their keeper, who casually popped her shoulder back into pl...
Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- Rowing? Paddle-happy winners!

The rowing club, over the last few months, has had a great start to the academic year, and we are all really excited to show our potential at BUCS too. We’ve had a brilliant intake of freshers, and it’s great to see the team spirit continue from last year. We are aiming to maintain the high levels of enthusiasm as well through the frosty winter mornings we all love so much! We have been taking on more opportunities to train, work out and improve our standards. In October the senior squad competed at Cambridge Autumn Head. Both the Men's 8+ IM3 and the Women's 4+ IM3 won their category, whilst the other boats competing on the day (two more women's and one more men's boat) were able to gain very respectable times providing us with a lot of confidence for the rest of the year. Lastly, we ha...
Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- An update from Swimming

RHUL Swimming is a friendly club that welcomes all competitive and leisure swimmers. As a club we are constantly growing, having increased membership by 40% since last year. Our 1st competition this year happened 2 weeks ago at Surrey Sports Park against Surrey! This was our first intercollegiate competition ever, winning 4/15 races including some fun races! Here is a cheeky race video: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=384347561722051&pnref=story Last weekend swimming were in Sheffield competing at the BUCS Short Course (25m), and two weekends after that we will be in Norwich at the BUCS Team Champs competition. CIYK last month was a great success with many of the new members initiated! Recently we have acquired two sponsorships with the Monkey’s Forehead and Medicine, ...
#BearsDay- Triumph for Men’s Football VI: IMPERIAL 5’s 1-2 RHUL
Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- Triumph for Men’s Football VI: IMPERIAL 5’s 1-2 RHUL

The lads of Royal Holloway football club's fourth team returned to campus with all three points, winning by two goals to one against Imperial fives. It was a game won thanks to organisation and communication across the pitch. The score line does not reflect the stream of chances that were carelessly squandered. Eventually on the stroke of half time a thirty-yard screamer from Geri Soni flew beyond the reach of Imperial’s to go into the break one up. It was to Holloway's disadvantage that the referee had a particular, and perhaps irrational, distaste for high feet which resulted in the conceding of a free kick on the edge of the box.The set piece was converted to make things level. At one a piece Holloway were reminded that it only requires one incident for the game to be turned on it...
Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- A Great Start for Volleyball

Great start of the season for both the Men’s and Women’s teams, who won their home matches. The Men’s team defeated Middlesex in Egham Leisure Centre with a secure 3-1. Despite the gloomy and depressing location, the boys started the game imposing a solid rhythm on the opposition and took the lead winning the first two sets with a good margin. During the third set, the team’s concentration went down, and due to far too many mistakes the opposition won the set 25-23. However, in the fourth and last set, the team went back on the court feeling determined to close the game. Thanks to new energy and a powerful and constant service, the boys won with a satisfactory margin of seven points. It was a fairly good game, and a special mention goes to all our new players, who did a great job consid...
Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- Netball 1st storm to victory

Walking into the large, spectator-packed, and annoyingly intimidating Brunel Netball hall, it was safe to say RHUL Netball 1st were feeling the pressure to win their first match of the season. However, once that first whistle blew, all nerves vanished and everyone was 100% focused and committed on winning the game against Brunel 2nds. RHUL had first centre and within 30 seconds Captain Freya Fownes (GA) had scored. A massive sigh of relief was had by the whole team, as that first goal is crucial and gets everyone pumped to score more. Brunel with the next centre, and as hard as the defence worked, it was soon one all. 5 minutes in, and it was still level at 3 a piece. It's safe to say at this point the team felt we just had to pull away, and that we did. Alexa Hassan (C) and Roxy Dixon (...
Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- RHUL Hockey Wolfpack Vs Imperial Medics 5’s

After several months of lone, predatory hunting in the wilderness of Surrey, the Wolfpack finally regrouped to participate in what they do best: Play some mediocre-yet-passable hockey. The summer hadn’t been good on the pack after many of the groups matriarchs had left for pastures new, more specifically actual careers, but many of the new pups quickly came up to the pace of the sport. Unfortunately, the match quickly deteriorated with the two’s struggling to have a serious spell in possession. It was clear that a summer of drinking and inactivity had not had the best effect on the team: by the end of the first half, we were undeservedly 2-0 down, particularly because our goalkeeper had only two hours experience in that position and because of a fumbled and scrappy ball over the line. A...
Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- Highs and Lows on First Football Fixtures

My first #BearsDay of the 2014/15 season was spent largely in a car travelling up and down to Portsmouth for this week’s Match of the Day: Portsmouth 3 – RHULFC 2. With only 11 players available for this game, and only two cars to transport those 11 (resulting in Alva Tawia and Pablo Aritio having to take the train down), the day started off hectic to say the least. After an hour and a half journey on the motorway, we only had 9 players when the referee blew the first whistle. It took our two train volunteers another half an hour to make it to the pitch, which required a heroic effort from the 9 on the pitch against 11 Pompeys, but boy did we hold out. RHULFC actually went up 2-0 before the opposition realised that just the numerical advantage was not going to give them the win. A he...
Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- ‘The Bears steam out of the cage’

Royal Holloways’ Men’s 1st Hockey team produced a clean and clinical performance on October 15th, dismantling new boys Chichester 3-0 in a huge first game of the season. Game One: three points. Despite their being no earlier stage found than this one and even though it may not define champions or label relegation battlers, it was a gritty performance that already bore extreme significance. New to the League 4A experience, a lot has been expected of the boys that hold the highest hockey helm at the College. Royal Holloway, since I have been a student certainly, has been acclaimed to higher leagues in the past and the fact that relegation, albeit through default of not recording the end-of-season draw, had become a reality, there remained a lot on the line to ensure that we climb into ...
Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- Fencing to Victory

"Come home with your shield or upon it" tweeted President Mike Smith at the Men's first fencing team on the first #BearsDay of the year. If we had shields, we would have returned with them, in style. The match saw our Men's 1st team play the Sussex 2nds team, resulting in what I'd call a pretty impressive start to the year. We started out with Epée, featuring myself, President Mike Smith, and our STARS fresher Elliot Grover. There was a flurry of blades and 50 minutes later we had secured a 45-23 lead- a rare score in a Epée, as a weapon regarded as very balanced in scoring. We can owe our lead in part to the fact that I was particularly on form and only conceded 4 points, which we can't expect every match. Next came foil, an all-freshers team so talented that they have kicked me off it ...