The Return of Sunday League

A guide to this semester's revamped Sunday League competition

It’s head-in-hands stuff for xG nerds this Sunday, as there are no blockbuster Premier League games to painstakingly analyse to the nth degree. Fortunately, true football fans can indulge in matchday three of the St Andrew’s Sunday League instead, which ditches inverted full-backs and other such nonsense for proper flying challenges and keeps the spirit of the game alive.

When someone asks me to describe the Sunday League at St Andrews (not that they often do), I always think back to my team (BLFC) and our first game against Lean FC. Eleven lads, most of whom had never met each other, pretending to know what position they had been assigned eight seconds before kick-off. A convincing façade until the ball started rolling, at which point we randomly dispersed and found ourselves in what can only be described as survival mode —both literally and figuratively. 

In our unusually tight-fitting purple shirts, the opening five minutes resembled a particularly traumatic scene from a David Attenborough documentary, where the flamingos flee for their lives from an army of ravaging crocodiles. 

As for actual injuries, there were two notable first-half casualties. Firstly, our winger Akhuil suffered a concussion (allegedly) and a deep wound (a graze) above his eye. It is worth mentioning that these life-threatening injuries were sustained when he ran into his own teammate. 

Like any battle-hardened Sunday League soldier, he complained loudly all the way to A&E, where they predictably deemed him to be completely fine. He was joined in the car by George, the right back, who broke his collarbone after being flattened by Lean FC’s absolute fridge of a target man. 

Not only did George never play for the club again, but he also missed a year of rugby while recovering from surgery. I think they call that ‘character building’. 

I myself played a more passive role, watching on as the ball flew over my head and into the net, over and over and over again. I believe the final score was 7-0, although the second half was somewhat of a blur. 

In the end, the only thing keeping me from walking off was morbid curiosity. Can it get any worse? Will we ever play football again? Will I ever get this skin-tight shirt off? Miraculously, the answer to all three was yes.

BLFC has come a long way since that dark, dark day, but we are still vying for promotion to the prestigious Division 1. 

There has been a change to the format this year, with play-offs replacing automatic promotion. Where a top two finish would ordinarily be enough to guarantee automatic promotion, the top two teams in Division 2 will now need to beat the bottom two from the top flight in order to head up. 

While that does make promotion more difficult, there are now only seven teams in each league as opposed to the previous nine, giving everyone a higher chance of making the playoffs in the first place.

Wardlaw Wanderers narrowly edged Beavers to win the Division 1 title on goal difference last semester, but with the core group of players graduating in the summer, they are no longer competing at all. This is sadly not a new phenomenon in the League —some readers will fondly remember the days of Senders FC, with their sponsorship deal from The Rule and cult international following now a thing of the past. 

There’s also a new look to the second tier, as FC BPM, DLL and Real Sosobad are all joining for their debut seasons. As to who will come out on top in Division 2 is anyone’s guess.

Signups for this semester have now closed, but those who are interested in forming a team next semester can join either through the Saints Sport website or by paying in person. The price per semester is £265 for the whole team, and the organisation is handled internally by the Football Leagues Officer. 

If BLFC’s zero-to-hero story can’t convince you to get involved, I’m not sure what will.

Image by Patrick Maitland