University of Nottingham Sport Annual Review 2020–2021 by The University of Nottingham

Annual Review 2020-2021

Welcome As with so much of society, the 2020-21 academic year was challenging in so many different ways for our university community. We have had to adapt and be reactive to changes at relatively short notice in order to continue to support our community’s physical and mental wellbeing. A good example of our agility came in December 2020 when the Government announced the travel window for students to return home for Christmas and the need to get them tested. We converted the David Ross Sports Village within a matter of days into a mass testing centre with capacity to process 25,000 students in a week. In 2020 in response to the initial Covid lockdown we set up the Health and Wellbeing hub to provide online support in the form of live exercise classes, a library of exercise programmes, a variety of engaging blogs on health and wellbeing and a range of resources supporting topics such as healthy eating, stress management and sleep quality. This continued to be a fantastic asset for us, as we moved in and out of various lockdowns and restrictions and by Christmas 2020 we had had over three million impressions on the site, reflecting its popularity and reach. When we were closed to the general public we still managed to continue to support our elite athletes, following government guidelines, and it was pleasing to see nine of our students / alumni selected for the Olympics / Paralympics, with a further two going as travelling reserves and equally six associates who train in our facilities also competing, including Emily Campbell who won a historic silver medal in the weightlifting.

In the annual BUCS awards we were shortlisted in 7 of 12 categories and came away with four awards (more than any other institution). There was deserved recognition for the aforementioned Men's Football Club, along with the student Covid hero award for one of our hockey players who volunteered 450 hours as part of the Nottingham First Responders attending 256 life threatening emergencies. Whilst it has been a tough year, we have also had a huge amount to celebrate. In addition to our BUCS success, we were awarded Sports University of the Year for 2021 by the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide. We won this award in 2019 and along with Loughborough, we are the only Universities to have won the award twice. We also won the CUBO (College & University Business Officers) Excellence in Student Sporting Experience Award 2020. Overall, despite being one of the most challenging years we have faced, we are really fortunate to have had such great support from a range of partners. We would particularly like to single out our Sports Board, which has been invaluable in providing advice, guidance and challenge to help us aspire to be the best we can. We are also incredibly proud of the response from our students and staff, who have responded to all the challenges with determination, agility, resilience and care.

In the periods when we could open our facilities, we were largely still bound by social distancing rules, however the sheer size of the David Ross Sports Village meant that with some creative re-organising of spaces and additional investment in equipment (for example converting the High Performance Zone into a general purpose gym space) we were still able to deliver a comprehensive programme to our community. One of the most heartening aspects of the challenging year was how the students responded. We had a wide range of clubs who really upped their broader civic responsibility and made huge efforts to support the wider community. For example, our sports clubs raised over £100,000 for the Movember campaign and our Men’s Football Club supported the Marcus Rashford Free School Meals appeal by providing meals to those in need.

Annual Review 2020-21

Dan Tilley Director of Sport

Josie Jessop Sports Officer

134,000 fitness suite visits

Over

16,300

£300k+

sport and fitness members

Raised for charity by our sports clubs

29 student-athletes competed at international level

million people reached through media coverage

Annual Review 2020-21

Olympic and Paralympic representation Tin-Tin Ho – Table Tennis

We are proud to support elite athletes in their training and development, providing them with the foundations to achieve their sporting goals. For the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, the following athletes were selected:

Sophie Unwin (l) with pilot Jenny Holl - Cycling

Olympic selection Student Tin-Tin Ho

Table Tennis

Alumni Harry Martin

Hockey

James Gall

Hockey

Tom Sorsby

Hockey

Medallists

Katie Snowden

Athletics

Emily Campbell

Silver

Sophie Unwin

Silver

Associates Liam Pitchford

Table Tennis

Zhao Shuai

Gold

Paul Drinkall

Table Tennis

Richard Whitehead

Silver

Emily Campbell

Weightlifting

Sarah Davies

Weightlifting

Paralympic Selection Former Student Tim Jeffery

Shooting

Alumni Stuart Wood

Canoe

Sophie Unwin

Cycling

Associate

Zhao Shuai

Table Tennis

Richard Whitehead

Athletics

Annual Review 2020-21

Emily Campbell - Weightlifting

International representation In a year of limited sporting competition domestically and internationally, our scholar cohort has still had a major presence in National Governing Body performance pathways and National Teams. 68 scholars have been actively engaged with these pathways, 33 at senior level, 15 at under 23 and 21 at under 21 level or below.

Dylan Traves - Karate

Where competitions have taken place, 29 of the University’s students have represented in their respective sports at an international level, with 16 representing senior international teams. We also saw eight scholars representing their country at under 23 level and 5 at under 21/20 level. These scholars and their sports are detailed below:

Senior International Representation

U23 Level

Harry Huang

Badminton

Emma Russell

Canoe Sprint

Johnnie Torjussen

Badminton

Enya Dale

Canoe Sprint

Charlie Smith

Canoe Sprint

Philip Miles

Canoe Sprint

Bethany Gill

Canoe Sprint

David Paterson

Canoe Slalom

Ieuan James

Canoe Sprint

Nikita Setchell

Canoe Slalom

Trevor Thomson

Canoe Sprint

Lucy Guest

Canoe Wild Water

Mitchell Sparrow

Cycling

Amy Platten

Judo

Stefano Lucchetti

Fencing

Mila Welch

Women's Hockey

Daniel Kiss

Fencing

Dylan Traves

Karate

U21/20 Level

Patrick McGowan

Men's Lacrosse

Oliver Smart

Men's Hockey

Will Prescott

Men's Lacrosse

Adam Buckle

Men's Hockey

Sanne Veldkamp

Squash

Conor Williamson

Men's Hockey

Tin-Tin Ho

Table Tennis

Katharine Curtis

Women's Hockey

Alexandra Malzer

Women's Hockey

Mollie Mason

Women's Hockey

Esme Burge

Women's Hockey

Annual Review 2020-21

Sir David Greenaway Sports Scholarship Recipients 2020 – 21 The sports scholarships attract the highest level athletes to Nottingham and our Sir David Greenaway Scholars have been: • Lucy Beecroft - Squash

• Stefano Lucchetti - Fencing

• Esme Burge - Hockey

• David McBeath - Table Tennis

• Tin-Tin Ho - Table Tennis

• Denise Payet - Table Tennis

• Georgina Kennedy - Squash

• Johnnie Torjussen - Badminton

• Noppawan Lertcheewakarn - Tennis

Annual Review 2020-21

Tin-Tin Ho

Stefano Lucchetti

Sport: Table Tennis Degree Course: Medicine

Sport: Fencing Degree Course: International Law LLM

Tin-Tin is an England Senior table tennis player ranked 93rd in the world, who recently qualified for her first Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Stefano is an elite fencer representing the Argentine National team. He is currently ranked 45 in the world, in the sabre event.

She grew up with the sport being coached by her father, who was himself an international table tennis player. TinTin qualified for her first international competition, the 2014 Commonwealth Games, when she was just 16 years of age.

Although Stefano just missed out on qualification for the Tokyo Olympics, Stefano has competed on the international circuit and has been an integral member of the University Fencing team – winning the clubs first ever BUCS gold in 2020.

Tin-Tin regularly visited the University on Table Tennis England training camps, which made it an easy decision for her when deciding where to study. Although, it has been tough to get the right balance between her studies and sport, she feels that the scholarship and support she receives as a part of that, has helped and played a significant part in her Olympic qualification.

Stefano is genuinely happy to be a part of the “Green and Gold family” and has played a key role in driving the positive and competitive culture within the University’s Fencing Club.

Achievements:

He decided to start studying in the UK so that he could attain a great education whilst also being able to pursue his fencing career. Stefano is proud to be a scholar at Nottingham and is appreciative that the support he has received has enabled him to train and travel to international competitions.

• 2014 Commonwealth Games, Silver medal in Mixed Doubles

Achievements:

• 2018 Commonwealth Games, Silver medal in Mixed Doubles

• 3 x Pan American Champion

• 2018 Commonwealth Games, Bronze medal in Ladies Team

• 2019 World Championship Finalist

• 2020 Toyko Olympic Games

• 2020 BUCS Nationals Gold

“Thank you so much for all your support. It really has made a massive difference and has honestly helped me with my journey. It helps us, as athletes and students, to have the opportunities to do what it takes to pursue our dreams and make it a little more possible.”

• 2021 World Cup, 95th overall

“The help and support we receive through the scholarships really makes a difference in our lives and we are so thankful for all your generosity. All the contributions can be easily seen in our amazing sports facilities and in our overall BUCS ranking.“

Annual Review 2020-21

Performance sports After a review of our performance offering, our focus performance sports now include: • American Football

• Lacrosse (Men's)

• Badminton

• Lacrosse (Women's)

• Canoe

• Netball

• Cycling

• Rowing

• Fencing

• Rugby Union (Men's)

• Football (Women's)

• Squash

• Golf

• Table Tennis

• Hockey (Men's)

• Tennis

• Hockey (Women's)

• Volleyball

• Karate

• Water Polo

Annual Review 2020-21

Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS) TASS brings together student athletes, educational institutions and sports, supporting some of the country’s most exciting young talents to balance the demands of their sport and studies. As the largest TASS delivery site in the UK, this past year we supported 53 athletes (University and local) across 18 different sports, building on our delivery and utilising the world-class facilities at David Ross Sports Village.

The department has invested in developing staff to support our work in this area, with 10 members of sports staff now qualified as TALS accredited lifestyle advisers. These advisers have provided 240 hours of support to TASS athletes linked with the University’s delivery site. In addition, the ongoing delivery from the strength and conditioning team, sports injury clinic team, sports psychologist and sports nutritionist throughout various lockdowns and restrictions has ensured that TASS athletes have continued to develop and have been able to manage the challenges they were faced with and be prepared for their return to competition.

Annual Review 2020-21

Partnerships Partnerships are key to our ongoing success, with a range of partnerships working to enhance our offer to students. • The investment in facilities has moved University of Nottingham Sport to a place whereby it is able to partner with high performance partners, and thereby providing an environment for our students and community to achieve their potential. • Our Tennis programme is one of a handful of tier three LTA partners, providing support at the highest level within the programme. This reflects the clubs achievement of University Tennis Programme of the Year in the 2021 official LTA awards. • We continue to work closely with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) to enhance provision for both our men’s and women’s rugby programmes, as well as the Football Association (FA) who fund recreational and leadership opportunities for students. • Our performance programme is also supported by Performance Centre funding for Volleyball England as a senior academy.

• We are an FA Women's High Performance Football Centre, which supports the development of coaches in the sport. • Our Swim England performance centre status is founded on a strong partnership with NOVA Centurion swimming club, one of the top talent development hubs in the country. • Our Partnership with Table Tennis England has further developed to provide national training centre opportunities for the best senior and junior athletes in the country. • We are working with British Canoe to partner in providing performance coaching support for talent pathway student athletes based at Holme Pierrepont National Water sports centre in Nottingham. Our partnership also provides a new boat storage bay at the end of the lake that support our rowing club in their training and competition on the flatwater lake. • Our official partnership with the Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS) has grown further and led to the University becoming the largest delivery site for supporting talented athletes in the country. • Our partnership with the GB Short Track Speed Skate provides the team with a performance hub in support of their elite athletes. This includes strength and conditioning and TASS support ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.

Annual Review 2020-21

2020-21 British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) Season Although the BUCS season was significantly impacted by the pandemic, a range of competitive activity still took place across the programme. In September 2020, BUCS began their return to sport campaign launching their golf and tennis schedules with University of Nottingham clubs entering over 40 students across the two sports.

The third term saw the return of cricket fixtures and a full BUCS programme was delivered - completing the four male and one female leagues where we finished top in two leagues. During the year we managed to complete over 200 fixtures where the sport’s National Governing Body guidelines allowed. This included Cricket friendlies, Fencing, Football, Hockey, Lacrosse, Rugby Union, Rugby League, Netball, Baseball, Softball, Ultimate and Gaelic Football.

Olivia Bates Women's Lightweight Singles champion 12

Annual Review 2020-21

We also enjoyed successes in the following competitions:

Lacrosse 6’s

Archery Outdoors

• Changed format to move from a 8s, to 6s competition in Bristol

• Gold medal - Experience Male Barebow - Matt Waters • Three gold, one silver, one bronze - novice categories BUCS Rowing Regatta • BUCS Regatta - Olivia Bates - Gold medal, Women's Lightweight Singles • 4th and 5th places in the Women's Championship Quad, Men's Championship Lightweight Quad and Men's Championship Pair respectively

• Women's team - Gold medal Tennis Individuals • Millie Wood - Women's Singles - 4th Triathlon Series • BUCS delivered all three annual triathlon events in 2020/21 • Over 40 University of Nottingham students competed

Canoe Polo

• Top University of Nottingham finisher - Simon Davis 5th place

• Men's team - Gold

Weightlifting

• Women's team - Quarter finals stage Cycling 25 Mile Team Time Trial • Men's Team - Gold

• Weightlifting is a new discipline for the BUCS schedule and this year it was run virtually. University of Nottingham sport scholar Myren Madden competed, winning the silver medal at this inaugural event.

• Women's Team - Silver • Seb Garry - Individual bronze medal

Annual Review 2020-21

Our sports clubs This year despite the tiers, lockdowns, a myriad of ever changing National Governing Body adjustments, and an incredibly limited ability to run in-person sport (some with just 12 weeks available indoors) - over 6,000 students were part of our 75 sports clubs, participating in sports online and in-person whenever guidance allowed. Clubs and coaches went above and beyond to be inventive in recruiting new members and maintaining engagement. Delivery methods remained online throughout much of the year, with fitness, conditioning, skills, technical, tactical, video analysis and all manner of other training methods taking place virtually in groups and individually in students living spaces. Likewise, clubs placed a huge emphasis on staying connected and supporting their members wellbeing throughout the pandemic, which was inspirational. • Rambling ran virtual walking challenges walking the Pennine way and the Thames Pathway; • Triathlon ran a very successful series of ‘trisolation’ challenges, where they spelt UoNtri on the map through a series of exercises, rides and runs over the first lockdown to stay connected; • Netball provided Mental Health First Aid training for 20 of their members who each took part in a two day course that gave them the skills they need to help those that need it in both emergencies and crises.

Annual Review 2020-21

In lieu of a regular BUCS competition on offer, clubs turned their focus to social action and charitable endeavours with some incredible outcomes: • Over £116,000 was raised for Movember by 95 Sports Clubs & Societies, receiving a platinum award from the Movember UK Team. • Golf put on a 24 hour fundraiser for The Golf Foundation, raising money to help people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds get involved in golf. In total they raised over £1,500; • Cheerleading wrapped presents for a local orphanage at Christmas – wrapping a total of 976 Christmas presents; • Men’s football gave away over 200 free school meals as a part of Marcus Rashford’s ‘No child goes hungry’ campaign, getting recognition from Marcus Rashford himself as well as a local MP on Twitter; • American Football donated gifts for a local foodbank as well gifts for women and children at Christmas; • Table Tennis ran a ‘Big Challenge Week’ to raise awareness about mental health and suicide. As a club they would compete a physical challenge that tackled a statistic in relation to that topic. For example - 5,691 sit ups, running 82,000 meters (3.5k per player), competing 20,000 squats along with some other non-physical challenges. • Boxing’s head coach Sam Gladdon broke the World Record for the most murphs completed in 24 hours, raising money for a charity devoted to his little sister; • Taekwondo, MMA and Thai Boxing raised over £1,000 for Nottinghamshire Mind through their virtual kickathon event this year with over 75,000 kicks; • Men's Rugby and Netball collectively ran for 24 and 48 hours at a time to raise money for Movember;

• Men’s and Women’s Cricket teamed up to complete a two-week charity run in aid of Opening Up Cricket. The aim was to run the distance from Trent Bridge to Lord’s, the 3,198 runs England ran at the World Cup, and back to Trent Bridge - a total of 464km. They managed to run 601km in total and raise £505 from both members and their families; Friendly fixtures Whenever guidance allowed, our clubs leapt at the opportunity to play competitive ‘friendly’ fixtures against local opposition with over 120 home games and 84 away games completed in the limited windows of opportunity, with some of the highlights including: • Gaelic Football - beat our city rivals NTU 5-9 to 1-5 to win the tri series 2-1; • Men's Rugby - beat NTU 37-32 in the only 1st Team game of the season; • Men's Football - beat Kettering Town FC 5-1 to maintain their unbeaten record in all friendlies this year. Award winners There was also national recognition for several of our clubs: • Women’s Rugby Won the England Rugby Student Leadership Award and BUCS Inspirational Committee Award; • Tennis Won LTA University of the Year; • Men’s Football Won BUCS Club Charity Initiative Award; • Angus Bradley (Men’s Hockey) Won BUCS COVID Student Hero Award; • Table Tennis were runners up for the BUCS Diversity and Inclusion Award.

Annual Review 2020-21

Health and fitness Over the last year we have created and shared a wealth of online health and wellbeing content to ensure that our members, students and wider community have had the resources on hand to stay fit, healthy and active. Our Health and Wellbeing Home hosts much of the content produced by the University of Nottingham Sport Team, including: • Hundreds of online fitness classes; • Blogs related to fitness, nutrition, wellbeing, mental health and much more; • Relaxation and mindfulness;

Annual Review 2020-21

• Fitness challenges; • Six week strength programme; • Online fitness programme and sports injury consultations; • Access to Les Mills On Demand workouts, Life Fitness Digital coach and Shreddy Home workouts. Our online content has been hugely popular and now has over four million social media impressions, including over 270,000 views of our online classes and video content. Since reopening we have seen members return to the fitness facilities with excitement and confidence. Our investment in new equipment as well as moving equipment into new spaces has enabled us to successfully meet demand. The fitness suites have welcomed over 134,000 visitors since facilities re-opened and our Group Exercise programme has seen over 10,000 attendances. These figures continued to grow every week and was a strong indicator of a return to previous levels of activity prior to Covid-19.

Annual Review 2020-21

Engage programme During the last academic year, the Engage programme was delivered across over 25 different sports. The sessions typically run weekly during term time, and are promoted online as well as through our social media channels. All Engage sessions are open to any student at the University irrespective of skill level, and all required equipment is provided. They are £3 per session, or free for students with a UoN Sport and Fitness sports membership.

In order to allow some sessions to take place at times when restrictions were in place, we moved some indoor sessions outdoors. We then offered some virtual classes, for example Tai Chi and Netball, to cater for students who weren’t on campus or who weren’t comfortable attending sessions in person. Over the last year we managed to deliver 133 sessions in Term One with 1,166 attendances and 778 participants. During Term Three, which is usually limited delivery due to indoor spaces being used for summer exams, we delivered 145 sessions with 812 attendances and 557 participants. In total, there were almost 2,000 attendances and just over 1,200 participants getting involved with the programme. Veterinary School at Sutton Bonington Our Vet School has recently added an April cohort to its intake and we provided a programme of sessions for this group during the Easter and Summer break. To date we have delivered 62 sessions for this group with 699 attendances and 344 participants.

Annual Review 2020-21

Staff engagement Although we have run a reduced programme of sport for staff, the uptake that we have seen has been positive with good numbers engaging with activities on a regular basis. During Term One we were able to offer three Badminton sessions which attracted 22 members of staff, with most returning on a regular basis. Once things started to ease in Term Three, we put on a number of Badminton and Football sessions, attracting over 40 members of staff on a regular basis.

We purchased an activity tracking app called Moves+ to give us an opportunity to encourage both students and staff to keep active during lockdown, earn points and subsequently reward them for doing so. The app was launched in December 2020 and to date we have 2,147 users (across our UK, China and Malaysia campuses). All users are affiliated to the University of Nottingham as they must register with a nottingham.ac.uk email address. We worked with 10 different networks, groups and clubs to deliver bespoke challenges for their members.

Whilst our usual Staff Sports Day was cancelled due to the large numbers involved, we were recently able to deliver a Staff Golf Day for 33 members of staff with one attendee saying:

“I thoroughly enjoyed the delightful day at Wollaton, and had a great time despite the restrictions”. We are looking to build on our offer to staff in the new academic year - following consultation with our team of Sport Champions - within the different departments across the University.

The purpose for doing this was to try and engage a more diverse group of users – encouraging them to get active with support from the app and University of Nottingham Sport. Current stats show that as a collective group we have: • Walked 935,796,207 steps • Cycled 82,367 miles • Ran 60,310 miles • Swam 1,480,555 metres (this figure is slighter lower than the rest due to swimming pools being closed for a large portion of the lockdown period) To date, we have delivered 147 challenges across all the activity options (walking, running, swimming, and cycling). We have had 7,233 signups for our challenges (the same user can take part in multiple challenges), 3,866 completed these challenges giving us a completion rate of 53%.

Annual Review 2020-21

Inclusive sport Although our “in-person” engagement was restricted this year, we continued to support inclusivity and saw a good level of engagement through our social media and online channels. Across the year, the following clubs ran inclusive sessions when guidance allowed: • Wheelchair basketball • Handball • Climbing • Football • Tennis • Table Tennis • Trampoline • Goalball Across those 8 sports over 90 hours of inclusive sport was delivered, engaging with approximately 80 students, disabled and non-disabled. Fitness Across this year, we have also developed over 50 pre-recorded “mini” exercise sessions – providing disabled students and staff with an opportunity to get active at home, or in an environment where they feel safe. These were viewed over 3,000 times.

Annual Review 2020-21

International Day of Persons with Disabilities We celebrated International Day of Persons with Disabilities on 3rd December, with the production of a video with 12 sports clubs and groups. It showcased the work that clubs had been doing to keep their members engaged and active, in an inclusive way. The video reached over 1,000 people. Rainbow Laces University clubs have shown year on year, their commitment to those students who identify as LGBT+, through the introduction of more inclusive practices and support for the Rainbow Laces campaign. In 2019/20 we produced a video to support the campaign, raising over £2,000 for Stonewall and increasing awareness of the work that we are doing around inclusion in this space. We made such a positive impact that we were shortlisted for the BUCS Diversity and Inclusion award in 2020. Mental Health Mental health has become increasingly more important over the last few years and we have continued to support students and staff. Clubs, sports members and staff showed their support during Movember, World and University Mental Health days with over £100,000 raised for charitable causes. Our Welfare in Sport campaign group, which is run by students, also supported activity and clubs through the development of a podcast and blog series. They also worked closely to help the 75 clubs deliver welfare support to their members – positively impacting over 6,000 students. In addition to this, their chair also spoke on a national BUCS webinar about the positive impact of their work around mental health.

Men’s Health Active The Men’s Health Active (MHA) programme is designed to encourage male students to use sport and physical activity to support their mental wellbeing. It also links in with a series of talk shops, which are run in partnership with the University’s Counselling Service and support the programme strap line - “there’s no strength in silence.” Over the last year the programme was run by a paid student ambassador who drove forward a lot of the activity, encouraging engagement throughout the clubs, societies and welfare networks across the University.

The programme's series of talk shops ran online on a monthly basis throughout the academic year and saw a good level of engagement, alongside some encouraging feedback from participants:

“I thought they were amazing - really good to be able to chat with other men about problems you have, come up with solutions together, or just have comfort in the fact that you’re not the only person feeling like that. There’s nothing quite like it that’s as accessible, easy, professional and available, and I found it really useful.” We recruited over 20 student MHA champions within the clubs. These champions provided a strong network through which they were, and still are, able to share MHA updates. These champions came from approximately 15 sports clubs and supported successful campaigns linked with: • World Mental Health Day

A number of sessions took place in terms one and three across a variety of different sports:

• International Men’s Day

• Climbing

• University Mental Health Day

• Headstrong (weights based session)

The online campaign for International Men’s Day, included videos of male students, staff and alumni talking about how sport has supported their mental wellbeing. The campaign engaged with over 6,000 people and received positive feedback from the University community.

• Football • Lacrosse • Running • Ultimate Frisbee

• Movember

• Gaelic Football

Annual Review 2020-21

Sports Leadership Academy This year has been a challenging year for the Leadership Academy with most of our programmes cancelled due to the pandemic. However, we have still had some fantastic delivery in the community and have undertaken a comprehensive programme of training for our students. Online portal

Alumni Networking Event

A number of our sports clubs have engaged with our online volunteering platform – Volunteer Kinetic - which we set up to monitor and support our community school delivery. This resulted in schools and students viewing the platform approximately 600 times across the year.

We also held our Alumni Speed Networking Event where we had 21 students engage with four University alumni, to discuss how sport and leadership has shaped their career paths. It was well received with positive feedback from those students who attended:

School delivery Two of our sports clubs – Boxing and Korfball – delivered sessions in two local primary schools. The 16 volunteers from these clubs led interactive sessions which positively engaged and impacted over 210 primary school pupils. University students delivered 16 hours of volunteering in a week which was a fantastic effort. Local community delivery University of Nottingham student volunteers also engaged with community football delivery throughout the 2020/21 season with over 170 hours of volunteering undertaken by a number of clubs across Nottingham. Leadership Qualification Fund We had 11 students successfully apply for the Leadership Academy Qualification fund and complete their coaching qualifications. These qualifications will benefit six clubs, with more local community delivery in the new academic year.

Annual Review 2020-21

“It generally motivated me to have a think about all things connected to my future and was an incredibly accessible and friendly environment.” “Given me awareness that I should not only apply for opportunities but treat the whole process as a journey, a reflection of my own character (learning to be resilient to failure, treating open doors like preparing for a match spectated by the world).” “It has taught me how to put all my sporting achievements and volunteering on my CV and opened my eyes to future opportunities and careers. I also learnt about mentoring.”

Annual Review 2020-21

Sport for Good Nottingham Programme In our partnership with the global charity Laureus Sport for Good, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham College and the Notts County Foundation (a local Nottingham based community charity passionate about using the power of sport to transform the lives of the people of Nottingham), the Sport for Good Nottingham programme has been running for over three years now. The programme uses sport and activities to develop life skills of children in years 6-8, and has a focus on social action, where each child undertakes a social action project of their choice to help their community. The programme works with eight schools in some of Nottingham’s most disadvantaged areas. The Sport England and #iwill campaign funded volunteering programme continues to be successfully delivered in schools across the city. Sport for Good Nottingham has continued to provide volunteering and leadership opportunities to our students along with supporting schools both virtually and in-person. With school shutdowns and students encouraged to stay at home, the programme adapted to focus on ‘virtual volunteering’ with a core group of 14 volunteers designing, recording and editing online videos to encourage our participating schools to get active, develop life skills and learn about social action. These videos along with activity packs, challenges and lesson plans, contributed to an online platform which has been used by many schools. Viewing figures are excellent with content being viewed over 600 times.

In person sessions successfully started in schools again in June 2021 with 10 volunteer leaders delivering fun, engaging and educational sport and life skill sessions to the pupils. All participating schools have given such positive feedback and are extremely glad the programme is able to run again in person. In the summer term alone 420 school pupils have been positively impacted by the in-person sessions. The programme has seen a large number of students sign up to take part with 120 students registered, 68 of which are from the University of Nottingham. The remaining volunteers were recruited from Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham College. Despite the disruption to volunteering, we were able to train and upskill a large proportion of our volunteers in delivering sessions to young people. This academic year a total of 153 hours have been volunteered for the programme by University of Nottingham students through virtual volunteering, training and delivery. A total of 237 hours of volunteering has been completed overall. The programme goes from strength the strength as we look forward to delivery resuming in the new academic year, as we build on a challenging but successful year.

“I highly recommend Sport for Good to anybody and everybody! It’s a great way to help your confidence grow, interact with others, learn new skills and learn from others. It helps you to use your initiative and come up with innovative activities for the children.” Kerry, Sports Leader

Annual Review 2020-21

Climbing wall Since reopening we have managed to get our schedule back up and running with great uptake. With 2021 being the first year that climbing featured in the Olympics, the interest in climbing and learning to climb has grown exponentially. We had over 914 new members registering to use the climbing wall up until July 2021. We began by restarting our climbing tasters, giving many people who felt inspired to begin climbing, a chance to come in and see what it was all about. As these picked up momentum the interest for new members joining the wall began to rise, and we restarted our bouldering inductions and auto-belay inductions. We have had a 100% increase in registrations since the beginning of 2021. We restarted our extremely popular children’s classes in June, and they were booked to full capacity every Saturday and Sunday morning. We have had so much interest in these sessions and our numbers developed quickly, with children enrolled on the programme up from 58 in June, to 85 in July.

Annual Review 2020-21

We were delighted to install a brand new Moonboard, which is a standardised interactive training wall. It connects our climbers with a global community through shared problems and competitive performance rankings. Many of our climbers had not used such a new training tool before and have incorporated it into their regular climbing activity. As a result they have seen great improvement in their climbing skills.

University Learn to Swim programme Our Learn to Swim programme returned in April 2021. Safety measures were at the forefront of our plans to return to ensure customers felt confident and reassured in returning to the programme.

At the end of the 2020-21 year 150 swimmers on our Early Years programme (six weeks to four and half years), 400 swimmers on our junior swimming lessons (four and half years and above), 74 swimmers on our Adult swimming lessons and 50 swimmers on our 1-2-1/private bubble swimming lessons. Our waiting lists have always been busy however since returning after a year’s break they have significantly increased and we currently have over 650 on waiting lists across the programme.

We offer swimming lessons to children from six weeks old through to adults and cater for a variety of ability levels. We aim to make our programme inclusive by working with customers to find the type of lessons that are best suited to them. Swimmers can access group lessons and 1-2-1 lessons, and since re-starting the programme we have introduced new private bubble swimming lessons.

In March 2021, we signed a new partnership with the Institute of Swimming to host Swim teachers' courses. In June 2021, we hosted our first Level One course and in July 2021 our first Level Two course which had 20 attendees. As a result of this partnership we have been able to introduce new trainee swimming lessons, offered at a reduced rate and taught by the trainee teachers. Although we have had a year away from the pool, the programme is thriving and the swimming teacher team have been working hard to encourage swimmers back into the pool.

Annual Review 2020-21

Sports Injury Clinic The Sports Injury Clinic provides a wide range of services to clients ranging in age, from children to the elderly, with athletic ability from the frail to the elite athlete. The services are provided by a team of highly qualified and dedicated health professionals. The team consists of physiotherapists; sports rehabilitators; massage therapists and a Sports Medicine Doctor. The clinic also supports both undergraduate and post graduate students from the Physiotherapy, Sports Rehabilitation, and the MSc in Sports Medicine courses.

Annual Review 2020-21

Services / Clinics Throughout this academic year the clinic has continued to deliver across all services despite the enormous challenges faced. Student-led clinics continued with clinicians providing opportunities and teaching with severely restricted clinics. This is a testament to the clinicians who are passionate about developing the next generation of professionals. Each year the clinic supports approximately 40 students from the division of Physiotherapy and Sports Rehabilitation, but due to decreased capacity within the NHS, the clinic supported an increased number of students peaking at 50. Working closely with the academic departments of Physiotherapy, Sports Rehabilitation & Sports Medicine, an extra cohort of students worked in small groups called pods, to gain experience by delivering support to 10 of our performance teams. This was an innovative way of enhancing performance provision along with gaining the vital clinical experience required by the University’s professional courses. The clinic therapists are directly involved with supporting university performance teams along with TASS and scholar athletes. This continued both virtually and in person when permitted. All therapists in the clinic either gained or maintained the highest level of pitch side first aid qualification, and therapists also continued to support national teams such as Goalball UK. The Concussion Clinic set up in 2019 is the first clinic of its kind in the UK and is run by an experienced Sport and Exercise Medicine Physician. This is complemented with expertise from our Sports Rehabilitators and Physiotherapists based in the Sports Injury clinic. The clinic provides concussion diagnosis and rehabilitation through the recovery process until the student can fully return to their academic studies and chosen sporting participation. The Concussion Clinic has also helped rehabilitate members of university staff and the members of our wider community, from teenage children to local semiprofessional athletes. The Concussion Clinic continues to be registered with the RFU as an approved setting to provide the Enhanced Concussion Pathway for elite athletes.

The hydrotherapy suite is utilised for performance enhancement, recovery, and a valuable treatment option for people with multiple and profound disability. Whilst this service remained largely closed throughout the academic year once it opened in April 2021, many of our previous patients returned. Numbers continue to grow as this service is proving invaluable for people who have chronic disability and have become deconditioned because of lockdown. We continue to develop our Gait Analysis system, further enhancing our offer to both elite athletes and the public. The sales of insoles have increased compared to last year, and although numbers are not large, there is steady growth in this service. During the lockdown period therapists made a radical change to their practise and ran a solely virtual clinic using telehealth minimising the disruption to the NHS contract. The NHS service continues to be a blended service of both telehealth and face to face contact. Statistics • Private Appointments Across hydrotherapy, massage, concussion, therapy, and student-led clinics, there were approximately 3,000 contacts generating an income of circa £71,000. • NHS contract The NHS contract generated an income in the region of £32,000 with approximately 2,000 contacts. • Performance The provision to performance teams, TASS and scholar athletes includes everything from pre-game preparation, pitch-side, recovery, injury management and complex rehabilitation. One to one contact delivered by all therapists amounted to approximately 600 contacts, and this included 174 TASS interventions. The clinic also carried out return to play screening for 53 TASS athletes.

The concussion clinic continued where possible and supported undergraduate students to carry out baseline concussion screening for over 150 athletes. Our concussion clinic, led by Dr Mary O’Hanlon, was also invited to submit evidence to the UK Parliament for the parliamentary inquiry into Concussion in Sport. The submission included evidence from research collected from our athletes in the clinic, along with information about the Concussion Clinic and the education service provided.

Annual Review 2020-21

Intramural Sports Leagues Our intramural sports programme (IMS) continues to be one of the largest in the country. IMS is a great way for students to stay active, meet new people and try something new at university by either playing for their course, with a group of friends, or for their hall of residence team. In mainstream sports such as Football and Netball, it is a programme for the masses and is where the majority of students still get to play competitive fixtures on a weekly basis.

Annual Review 2020-21

IMS was one of our key programmes this year as it was able to provide an internal competitive structure for students at a time when most other competitive sporting opportunities were suspended due to Coronavirus - although it was mainly restricted to outdoor sports. Over 4,500 students signed up to play IMS through our online app and this included: • 44 Hall teams • 126 Society teams • 45 Friendship teams The programme managed to deliver over one hundred fixtures per week, and a total of just over 1,000 fixtures this year during the months it was permitted to run. Finally, this year we introduced a new event at the end of the season, the IMS All Stars. This is where the best players from IMS played fixtures against the BUCS clubs. The hope is that this event creates stronger links between IMS and University representative clubs moving forwards.

Key sporting events and activities Between 1 August 2020 and 31 July 2021, University of Nottingham Sport were proud to host the following teams, athletes and events at David Ross Sports Village: • Badminton England Performance Centre Training; • British Triathlon Elite Youth Athlete Assessments; • British Weightlifting Commonwealth Games Team Training; • British Weightlifting Elite Youth Team Training; • British Fencing Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence Training Camps; • England Hockey Performance Centre Training; • Table Tennis England – Youth and Senior Performance Squads; • GB Boccia Paralympic Training Camp; • GB Men’s Senior, Women’s U17s & Men’s U18s Handball Team; • GB Speed Skating Team • GB Table Tennis Olympic Training; • Indian Men's Cricket team • Ireland IQ U18s Training Camp. • Sheffield United Women’s Football Club Training Camp;

Annual Review 2020-21

Press and media coverage Over the last year we have faced unprecedented challenges. Despite this we have managed to continue to produce engaging content across our social media platforms, particularly around helping people keep active and healthy, both physically and mentally during lockdown. Whilst our overall coverage has been affected by the pandemic, simply due to our reduced programme, we have also still had key stories in major publications over the past year.

Print and Online • Reach: 37,493,062 • Value: £346,810 Broadcast • Reach: 59,000 Total • Volume (Print, Online and Broadcast): 10 • Reach: 41,005,022 • Value: £347,356

Key News Stories

The Tab: 18 Septemer 2020 A local network covering youth and student culture wrote a piece about the University of Nottingham being named Sports University of the Year 2021. Available to read here.

Annual Review 2020-21

The Times & Sunday Times: 20 September 2020 The Times & Sunday Times outlined their reasons for awarding us the title of Sports University of the Year for 2021. Available to read here.

Sky Sports: 8 December 2020 Coverage of our Rainbow Laces campaign and how it helped to raise inclusive awareness in sport. Available to read here.

Sky Sports: 14 April 2021

IE Today: 19 January 2021

The FA: 29 January 2021

Coverage of the development of Nottingham Hockey Centre to help progress the facility into a leading international hockey venue.

A FOCUS Study by The University of Nottingham was discussed by England Men’s National Team manager, Gareth Southgate.

Available to read here.

BBC Sport: 10 June 2021

Impact Nottingham: 12 June 2021

British Universities and Colleges Sport: 14 July 2021

The universities official student magazine covered our Nottingham Games which took place to give students in their last year one last opportunity to compete in a year where they had been denied this by Coronavirus.

The efforts of the higher education sport sector was recognised by BUCS at their annual BUCS Awards. The University of Nottingham Sport was represented in 7 categories, and won 4 Awards on the night.

Available to read here.