About

Ultimate has been played in Brighton for the past 20 years. The university team, set up in 1985, is one of the longest-running teams in the country and has achieved the highest honour of winning the student national championships. Brighton has also produced many excellent players that have gone on to play at international level.

Despite having such a strong history of Ultimate in the city, the Brighton Ultimate club, representing both student and city players, is only two years old. This is part of a nationwide trend towards geographically based teams. In our first year we competed in all of the national ranking tournaments, with our best finish being 5^th and achieving 11^th place at the Open National Championships, while in the Mixed National Championships, Brighton finished 7^th in the country and was awarded the spirit of the game trophy. In our second year, we improved on these already impressive results, and placed 5^th in the Open division and 3^rd in the Mixed division, in addition to winning the Indoor National Championships! In recent years Brighton have also competed at an international level at tournaments in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Florence, Italy, and the predominantly Brighton-based Shocker team came 5th at Paganello (the World Beach Ultimate Championships in Rimini, Italy).

In the club there are currently around 90 players who attend practises and come to tournaments. Members range from seasoned international stars - who have represented Great Britain in European and and World championships – to complete beginners.

Ultimate is mainly a summer sport with this season beginning in April and ending in late September. The season is organised into a series of tournaments, each held over a weekend in various locations throughout the UK. There are three major tournaments that provide the qualification and seeding for the national championships and it is here that the best teams in the open, mixed and women’s divisions battle for supremacy.

In addition to these tournaments there are various one-off events where the atmosphere is more relaxed. Annual fixtures, such as the Glastonbury Open and Paganello beach tournament in Italy, provide excellent opportunities to play and socialise. During the winter we run weekly training sessions and take teams to play in the London Winter League each month. Social events run throughout the year and are also used to help raise money for the club.

Our aim is to make Brighton Ultimate into a premier division side and to achieve a level of domestic success that will qualify us for European and other international tournaments. At present the national league is arranged so that the top eight teams form the elite division. It is at this level that we want to compete.