Women’s participation sports

You can join our established teams, sports, and societies in a welcoming space. A great opportunity to practise your favourite activity or try something new in a friendly social environment is through women’s participation sports. There’s always room for more sports to be added too!

Whether you’ve participated before or have never done so, our teams are open to players of all levels of skill. We will have welcoming student leads on board to encourage you and help you navigate our sessions.

Campus League – women’s netball

Undergraduate Medical Sciences student Lily Sibley talks about female-only activities and Campus League sports. 

Campus League sessions

Campus league runs on both Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, taking place at the Sugden Sports Centre. During these evenings, many different university courses bring their netball teams to have some match play experience and to enjoy some social time between games. A Tuesday evening is when the more social league takes place, where beginner teams can come to develop their netball skills and teamwork. On a Tuesday, there are usually four games that take place with around 64 players attending overall. On Wednesday evenings, there are two more competitive leagues that run, where eight games take place. Around 128 players are involved. As well as the players attending, we also have two female umpires per game who have often started out as beginners and have trained to umpire to a high standard now.

Supporting women in sport

Campus netball league gives lots of opportunities to all women who want to be involved with sport. Having it as a female-only activity ensures that women have more confidence to attend and get fully involved. There is no judgement from others and women are not often as worried about how they look after sports. It is great to see the encouragement given to individuals within each team and from other teams competing.

Participation for all

There are no restrictions on who can participate in the league, so anyone can attend. Some people who have never played netball can also attend, where they may simply want to improve their fitness or meet new people. On the other end of the spectrum, we have competitive teams where individuals can develop their netball skills by challenging themselves against other talented players.

Paving the way for women

It would be great if women-only sports such as netball were broadcast more often and advanced. One day, I would love to see netball included in the Olympics, providing increased opportunities for women to support each other.

Sporticipate – women’s dodgeball

Chair of UoM Dodgeball, Leo Booth, tells us about the benefits of playing dodgeball, focusing on achievement, skills and the future of women’s dodgeball.

Weekly dodgeball sessions are held at the Denmark Road Sports Centre. There are typically around 20 women per class, though the exact attendance each week varies. Moreover, we field a mixed squad for local competitions and a women’s team for BUCS.

Benefits of sport

We believe there are some important reasons for running our session only for women. Firstly, dodgeball is a terrific method to develop abilities like confidence, trust, and the capacity for teamwork that you might not necessarily get at university alone.

Although everyone begins at the same level in our mixed session, men are frequently stronger, more aggressive, and perhaps sometimes more confident in the sport, making it difficult to learn these skills. As a result, having a separate session for women, to begin with, allows them to develop their teamwork, strength, confidence, and understanding of dodgeball in a setting free from other expectations and potential barriers.

On essential skills

Once someone can acquire the essential skills and gain the self-assurance to participate in our mixed sessions, they will feel a sense of accomplishment. The pressure to fit in is also significantly reduced by beginning with a separate session because you aren’t attempting to prove yourself. This benefit continues as you move on to the mixed sessions because you have already developed your skills, have “proven yourself” and have gained the confidence to advance.

Delving further into the skills acquired both in sessions and tournaments, playing as a team in the high-pressure environment that is dodgeball requires one to lead, rely on others, and speak up for yourself. All skills we believe are incredibly useful in and out of our society.

The future of women’s dodgeball

Finally, our plans would be to recruit more women from our sessions to join the women’s competitive team so that it is large enough to have substitutes or even better enough to create an entire second team. Furthermore, we would like to get more women interested not only in the sport but also want to get better and improve for their own benefit.

Sporticipate – women’s baseball and softball 

Spoticipate reps Jeffery Fong, Gabrielle Mannifield and Charlotte Lee tell us about Sporticipate women’s sessions.

The University of Manchester’s Baseball and Softball Societies held the first ever single-sex Sporticipate session in February 2023. This event was held at Sugden Centre where we hired two sports halls during our regular time slot. This session was open to all skill levels and free to attend. Female committee members along with some volunteers organize and run the session. There were 21 participants in total, which was an amazing turnout.

Developing skills

We believe that this event helped promote female leadership in sports, especially for our committee members who spent over a month planning for this session. It also created a safe environment for new members to learn about this sport and feel more confident when playing. In a smaller group environment, we were able to focus more on individual skills development which helped them feel more confident in playing. By creating a more slow-paced session, the women were able to learn in a relaxed and fun environment, suitable for beginners.

Future plans

As a result of the first session’s success, we plan to hold monthly sessions. Our goal is to promote female inclusivity by running more sessions and initiatives in future years!

Campus League – women’s football

Women’s Campus League Football co-ordinator, Chhaya tells us about her passion for football and the work she does to help coordinate the women’s 6-a-side football league on campus.

Women’s 6-a-side football league, held at the Armitage Centre on Tuesday evenings 5:30-7 pm. Although this is a small league compared to other intra-mural sports, it is a fantastic opportunity for women’s football. We encompass teams from The University of Manchester 4s, the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health (FBMH), Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and local teams or groups of women who love to come down and get involved. Women with various abilities can compete in a league, albeit small, with a strong competitive spirit and lots of fun! As everyone gets to know each other, it creates a lovely community for the girls and women participating. Everyone is welcome and gets a chance to play. 

My goal at The University of Manchester has been to develop the Women’s 11-a-side Football League, which is not exclusively for BUCS, in order to increase the popularity of women’s football. 

Check back throughout March to discover more This Girl Can features.

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