BUCS has published the provisional leagues for the 2014-15 season. It’s always interesting to see which schools are added or dropped and which expand the number of teams competing (as I observed last year). For the upcoming season, though, we have the addition of northern and southern premier leagues sitting above Division 1.
The advancement of teams up from Division 1 and into the Premier Leagues meant there would have to be additional teams promoted up from Division 2 beyond the league winners already designated to do so in place of the bottom Division 1 finishers who would be relegated.
The Men’s Premier Leagues are as follows:
| Northern | Southern |
| Northumbria | East London |
| Strathclyde | Bournemouth |
| Durham | Exeter |
| Sheffield Hallam | UCL |
| Edinburgh | Cambridge |
| Warwick |
The Women’s Premier Leagues are as follows:
| Northern | Southern |
| Northumbria | Oxford |
| Durham | Kings |
| Glasgow | Exeter |
| St. Andrews | Bournemouth |
| Edinburgh | Cambridge |
| Sussex |
Both leagues were meant to have six teams (as I noted previously). Not sure why the North only includes five in both cases. The documentation says they will expand that to the full allotment for 2015-16.
In terms of my own coaching, as you can see, both the Exeter women’s and men’s first teams earned a spot in the Southern Premier League for the new season. They move up from Division 1 on the basis of making Final 8s this past season.
At the lower levels, the women’s 2nd team has gained promotion to Division 1 from Division 2 thanks to a second place league finish last year. This would not normally be enough to gain promotion as only the first place team advances. The way it fell out, though, was that the two bottom teams from Division 1 were relegated (Bristol and Cardiff), so with Exeter and Bournemouth promoted you get 4 spots to fill. As a result, the top two teams from Divisions 2A and 2B (A/B being a geographic split) were promoted.
On the men’s side it was a similar situation. Two teams were relegated from Division 1 (Southampton, plus Gloucestershire by dint of withdrawing) while Bournemouth and Exeter were promoted up. The four slots were filled by the top two finishers in Divisions 2A and 2B. Unfortunately, the Exeter 2 guys finished 3rd last season, so they remain in Division 2.
One could certainly question relegating two teams from Division 1 and bringing up four from Division 2. The formula isn’t quite made for these sorts of situations. There doesn’t look to have been anything said yet about promotion/relegation to/from the Premier Leagues after next season. We are all quite curious to find out what BUCS is planning on doing for scheduling.
A number of new schools/teams are shown in the chart of the provisional league assignments, but we need to wait and see how that all falls out. Some of the names I see were listed as being in the mix last year, but didn’t end up taking part in play for whatever reason. We’ll see what ends up happening there.
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3 Responses
John, is the new BUCS Volleyball Structure for 2014-15 official and available on the BUCS website? I cannot find it anywhere and would appreciate your help. Thanks!
Hi Szymon. The structure is “provisional”, so I suppose that means open to potential change yet. Your AU should have received a copy, as that is where we got it from on our end (and I know Derby got a copy from their AU a couple weeks ago as well). It’s part of a big PDF with the provisional leagues for a whole bunch of sports.
OK, thanks John!