Frank Morton Sports Day

The Frank Morton Sports Day is an annual sporting competition between the students of chemical engineering departments from UK universities. The event is held on one of the campuses of one of the competing universities, normally in the second week of February, when there is less academic pressure on students.

History

The event is named after Frank Morton, a prominent professor of Chemical Engineering, who taught at Birmingham University until 1956, when he switched to teaching at UMIST (now University of Manchester). His love for sport and connections at both universities led him to organise the first of these sports days. The competition began as a football match between the two departments, but by the 1980's, the event had grown to include many more universities and sports

Previous Winners:

Current Format

The modern version of the sports day shows significant development from the original concept, though the ideals of friendly competition and rivalry remain. The day can begin for many students as early as 2am, when they travel from their university to where the competition is held. Sports competitions are held throughout the day, typically from around 10am to 4pm. After the conclusion of the sporting events, other competitions take place, such as a Pool and Pub quiz competitions. Despite the less athletic nature of these competitions, teams' performances in them still count towards the final points total for the universities.

In the evening, the performances of the teams in all events are used to determine the winning university of that year's competition. Following an award ceremony, the visiting students are given the opportunity to sample the local night life of the host university.

2006 Event

The 2006 event [http://www.frankmorton.co.uk/] was held at Birmingham University and showcased many different sports, featuring Ultimate Frisbee for the first time. Other sports included:
* Football
* Netball
* Badminton
* Rugby
* Hockey
* Rounders
* Ultimate Frisbee
* Basketball
* Squash

as well as a Pool competition and Pub quiz and a "Pit Stop Challenge" where teams would compete for the fastest time to change the tyres on a replica Formula 1 car.

The overall winner of this event was the University of Manchester.

2007 Event

The 2007 event was hosted by Manchester University on 20 February. Although it has been customary for previous winners to host the next event, this practice is no longer used, and the fact that Manchester were hosts the year after they won the competition is coincidental. Today Universities present their proposals to the IChemE National Student Council and a winner is chosen by one round of voting.

There were minor changes to the list of sports with rounders being replaced by dodgeball, and table-tennis being added.

The overall winner was Imperial College, who finished joint winners of the Basketball competition with Strathclyde University. The University of Manchester and Cambridge University came in at 2nd and 3rd respectively. Imperial also won in both the Singles and Doubles Badminton, as well as the Pub Quiz. The football was won by Strathclyde University, and the rugby completely dominated once again by Manchester University. Hockey was won by Cambridge University, as was the new event addition of table tennis.

2008 Event

This took place on 19 February 2008 at the University of Leeds. 1300 students from 17 universities and several company teams took part. Imperial College London successfully defended their title as overall winners, with Birmingham University second and Strathclyde University third. The champion company team was that from Bechtel. Results from TCE ["The Chemical Engineer" issue 802 (April 2008) page 60] .

Results
* Football: Strathclyde
* Rugby: cancelled because of frozen ground
* Hockey: Birmingham
* Badminton: Shell Company Team
* Dodgeball: Bath
* Table Tennis: Cambridge
* Rounders: Edinburgh
* Basketball: Imperial College
* Netball: Jacobs Company Team
* Squash: GSK Company Team
* Best T-Shirt: Manchester

Sponsors were:

ConocoPhillips;
GSK;
Royal Dutch Shell;
Siemens;
British Sugar;
Petrofac;
Lafarge;
CB&I;
Jacobs Engineering;
Bechtel;
SABIC;
Exxon Mobil;
M W Kellogg;
Atkins plc

2009 Event

Newcastle University will be hosting the 2009 Frank Morton Games.

References