I've noticed a few ex-malaysian national players going to this University. (I know the city quite well myself). But why are they choosing this University.... and not the other one?
Although this is not the best university academically , it is known for being the best university for sport. They called themselves Leeds Carnegie. They are very dedicated to sport and have international coaches , and attract county players , national players , and ex-national players. Best facilities ,etc. they would have offered a good sport scholership/bursery to attract those kind of players , but in return they will have to agree to be part of the university squad and offered coaching to their 2nd /3rd team
http://www.bucs.org.uk/BucsCore/Tea...tion=Leeds+Metropolitan+University+(Carnegie) They just wiped the other team in the premier North aside .....very dominant
The malaysian players ther were invited and given scholarships to attend the leeds met (Carnegie) as part of the universities policy of performance sport and to help improve the standard of the performance centre, leeds met is one of the three best universities in the UK for sports facilities and sports based courses (others being Loughborough Uni and Bath Uni). The Leeds Met badminton squad is the most successful team at the university and its the best nationally for student sport with many junior international and current internationals based and training there, for example in the past 2 years they have (mostly) dominated the british universities badminton competitions partly thanks to players from asia as well as the large number of funded UK players based there many of whom play on the European circuit. The main attraction is that Leeds Met hosts 1 of 2 national High Performance Centers funded by Badminton England for young talented players so if you want near full time training via the performance programme you generally attend one of these centers at either leeds met or bath uni. I know that some if not all the Malaysians (like Lim Kenn) have actually graduated this summer so are probably not part of the squad anymore unless they are staying in Leeds and doing extra study. Actually for current malaysians playing at UK universities you should look away for Leeds Met to loughborough uni now whom host the Ng sisters who are ranked in the top 40 or so in WD as they study there.
Thanks for the info. Are they restricted to certain courses or allowed to pick any course? I saw one of the names was Joanna Quay - Last time I saw her was playing in the HK Open and I was taking photos of her. This was about 5 years ago. Before the Leeds Met got its full University status, the dominant badminton University was Loughborough. Predating the BUCS, the Universities used to compete in the UAU team championships. That time, Leeds Metro was a polytechnic and polytechnics had a separate competition. In fact, for two years in a row, the University of Leeds (the other Uni in Leeds!) won the UAU (both 1st and 2nd men's team won respectively) beating Loughborough. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a historical reference on the web for that. After those two years of losses to Leeds, I think Loughborough got distinctly annoyed because they went and got a few national players to study there. Actually, that leads me to another point. Are there any grads of UK or UK persons who used to play in the first team/county/national level working in HK? Wouldn't mind getting to know them.
Hey cheung, Leeds Met since gaining uni status invested heavily in sport to differentiate itself for the other old polytechnics and has done quite well formed a reputation in sport, teaching and nursing for example. They became very very good at badminton since becoming effectively the northern training base for badminton in england and one of a very few universities were you could be funded and study (Bath, Loughborough, Birmingham and previously Manchester (not anymore)). Since lottery and sport england funding became involved in the sport you study were the funding is so effectively its unlikely another uni outside of Leeds Met, Loughborough and Bath will dominate. Its only recently really leeds met have become predominant over the last 5/6 years ago. I actually study at uni of leeds as you mentioned above currently have/ or had a couple of junior internationals playing here and an ex HK junior playing here however the focus is on studying normally and without funding.
Great to hear about Leeds Uni. It's got a good community aspect to campus life (that's what we say to parents of prospective students here in Asia )
Leeds Met has the best University badminton team out of all the Uni's in the UK as others have said, Loughborough as well is known for having a good badminton team as well, these universities dominate the competitions such as BUCS. As others have said, Ng Sisters are now at Loughborough, and some of the Leeds players will have left, but still can't really see any other universities beating them in competition. Out of interest, anyone know if Leeds contribute financially towards sending players to tournaments? I've seen the Leeds and Loughborough teams at competitions.
Anything to do with you?! As people have mentioned Leeds Met have funded sports big time in the past few years (even sponsoring the Super League rugby!) which has led to it attracting a lot of sporting talent. And the fact that it is a great city....lol!
And why not? Do you know what the feeling is like to go to Loughborough and beating them on their home turf? Priceless!!
The uni funds them for tournaments when they represent their uni. If I remember correctly Lim Kenn mentioned it before in his facebook. International tournaments, I'm not sure, they either fund themselves or find sponsors. Normally only see them participate in Malaysia (SS,GP Gold, IC) when they come back for hols. With the exception of the Ng sisters of course, they should still be funded by their father
It's really good badminton players get funded for further study. Having such a scheme can only promote our sport. It's great the way that the funding is also tied to coaching others further down the university so that the funding doesn't stop at one player. I doubt many other universities will do the same but I hope it would happen in the future.
No, they do this at most universities , is a sport scholarship where you have to applied , on the application, they will ask you your achievements such as national /international rankings , tournaments wins etc. then they will assess your ability , follow by an interview with the the head coaches and other important individuals on the broad. Then they will put you into the team , where you might also be involve in assisting coaching within the university . Does not really matter which sport , as long as it is a sport that the university participate and you have some form of national /international recognition. p.s. not every indidiviual will have the same amount of funding , it also vary with the sport . Those universities which are very much into their sport will have a larger budget, and would be able to invite althletes to their univeristy to read a degree of their choice where all tutition fees would be inclusive , but I doubt they will pay for their expenditure as well
