Sport and Recreation

Sport Centre | Outdoor facilities | Clubs and Coaching

If you enjoy sport, either as an enthusiastic participant or as an occasional user, you'll have lots of opportunity to follow your particular interests or to take up new ones, all at minimal cost. You will find excellent facilities for indoor sports and recreation in the Sports Centre, and all members of the University can enjoy a wide range of outdoor activities.

Sport Centre

The purpose-built Sports Centre is in the middle of the main campus. There is a large main hall, used for badminton, five-a-side football, trampolining, archery, hockey, basketball, volleyball, tennis, cricket nets, climbing, netball, golf, martial arts and various fitness activities; although not all at the same time! The small gymnasium is available for a variety of activities, including fencing and table tennis; while the studio facility provides space for activities such as Aikido, Tai Chi, contemporary and body pump.

The weight-training room offers you the chance to improve your fitness, with its multigym and Olympic facilities. Several aerobics classes take place weekly. Two squash courts are attached to the building, and there are two others at the pavilion at the Laisteridge Lane Sportsground.

The Sports Centre also provides facilities not generally found in universities: including a sauna suite and a solarium. There's also a state-of-the-art Nautilus Fitness Suite, packed with all the latest cardiovascular and resistance exercise machinery. The presence of resident fitness instructors and individually tailored programmes for all ages, weights and sizes, and from complete beginner to advanced trainer, means that you have no excuse whatever not to keep fit!

There's also a fully equipped and heated, indoor, 25-metre swimming pool is an integral part of the Sports Centre. Qualified staff are present whenever it is open - usually for 13 hours a day.

You can book any of the playing areas for individual or group use at most times during the day, except when sessions are reserved for classes, matches or competitions. The evenings are mainly made available to student clubs.

The Sports Centre also offers a range of therapies including Beauty Therapy, Reflexology, Aromatherapy & Indian Head Massage and Remedial/Sports Massage.

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Outdoor Facilities

The University has playing fields at two sites, one close to the campus at Laisteridge Lane, behind the Halls of Residence, and one at Woodhall, in a pleasant area four miles from the campus, within easy reach by public transport.

The Woodhall Sportsground comprises five football pitches, three rugby pitches and two cricket squares. The pavilion provides changing rooms, showers, a refectory and a bar. At the Laisteridge Lane Sportsground, new artificial turf sand-grass pitches have been constructed and opened in September 2000. These consist of 4 five-a-side pitches, 2 netball courts, and a full sized hockey/football pitch. The area is fully drained and floodlit.

Other outdoor activities, such as rowing, sailing, canoeing, climbing, potholing, hiking, cross-country running and golf are organised through the Athletic Association.

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Clubs and Coaching

There are approximately fifty sports clubs at present, and the best way for you to get the most out of the sporting opportunities at Bradford is to join one. They not only cover the major activities of rugby, cricket and football, but also most other sports, from archery to water polo and from hang-gliding to potholing.

The University is part of the Bradford/Leeds Centre of Cricketing Excellence. Talented cricketers (male and female) will receive top-class specialist coaching, backed up by sports science and medical support, and the opportunity to play against First Class counties. For further details, ring Kevin Sharp on 01274 235855.

The University's Physical Recreation staff and the Student Union's Athletic Association work closely together in actively promoting sports on the campus. If you want to branch out into a new sport or merely develop your talents in your existing interests, you can join one of the coaching classes which are provided in many sports, at various levels of expertise from beginners to advanced. Swimming classes are also held.

Bradford teams have established themselves within the high standard of British university sport, and, if you join a University team, the staff are available to help with coaching and in other ways. Particularly successful players can be awarded Colours.

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31 May 2006