The start of Michaelmas brings lectures, supos and sport! If you’re struggling to get your head around University sport (believe me, I was when writing this), then here is a comprehensive preview of first team Blues football for the term ahead.

Both the men’s and women’s first teams had success last year in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS). The men’s side won the Midlands Conference Cup and came 2nd in the Midlands Tier 2 League, which gained them promotion to Tier 1 for this coming season and entrance to the National Trophy. The women’s side came 4th in the Midlands Tier 1 and made it to the semifinal of the National Trophy, which keeps them in both competitions for this coming season. They also beat Oxford convincingly in the annual Varsity fixture.

The women’s first fixture of the term will be against rivals Oxford, who have been recently promoted to Tier 1 of the Midlands League. This will be a tough first game for a new squad, with last season’s co-captain (and former Varsity Sports editor) Abbie Hastie having now graduated. But if the 3-0 scoreline of the Varsity fixture during Easter is anything to go by, the Light Blues may have the upper hand. The two teams will face one another again later in Michaelmas, but in the other place (yuck).

Their remaining fixtures in Michaelmas shouldn’t cause too much issue for the Light Blues, with only Loughborough 2s and Birmingham 1s having triumphed over the team last season and Nottingham Trent 1s having now been promoted to Women’s Premier North League.

The women’s team will start their National Trophy journey against Loughborough Women’s 3s in October, which shouldn’t trouble them too much, with Loughborough 3s being a newly promoted team into the National Trophy. But the Light Blues haven’t played this Loughborough side before and Loughborough’s sporting prowess does not lie, with Loughborough 2s in the same Trophy and their first team being in the league above. But after the good cup run they had last season, prospects look bright for the Cambridge squad.

Fixtures against the stronger sides in the league last season may prove tricky however. Loughborough 2s and Birmingham 1s finished on 19 and 18 points respectively, compared with Cambridge finishing the season on 13. The second and last fixtures of Michaelmas will be against these sides and will force the Light Blues to keep up performances throughout the season.

Michaelmas holds the majority of the women’s team’s league fixtures, with the National Trophy mostly being played in Lent, so this term will be a vital one for the Light Blues’ hopes of promotion into the Women’s Premier League North.

The men’s first team will have a difficult season ahead of them, they will have to prove themselves after being newly promoted to the Midlands Tier 1 League and also the Men’s National Trophy.

Nearly all of the men’s Light Blues’ fixtures will come against sides they didn’t face last season. Some universities are familiar, such as Loughborough, Nottingham and Warwick, but Birmingham will be a new university for the Cambridge men’s squad to face. But with the exclusion of Loughborough 3s, the rest of the teams will be the more senior squads of their respective universities.

The men’s team will start their National Trophy run against Loughborough 2s, who made it to the quarter finals last season and came 3rd in Tier 1, making it a tough start in the cup for the Light Blues. But the two teams will have a run in three weeks before this, so Cambridge will have an opportunity to eye up the competition before the National Trophy begins near the end of November.

The start of the season will be tricky for the men’s side though, with last season’s top goalscorer Joseph Dalton having now graduated. Dalton scored 7 of the team’s 31 goals last season in the league, making him the top goalscorer for the Midlands Tier 2 League; and in Midlands Conference Cup, he scored another 7 out of the Light Blues’ 14 goals during the campaign.

But the squad will likely retain key player Deniz Ozer, who will be fit to replace the gap left by Dalton in his second season with the Blues squad. Ozer shined in the Varsity fixture against Oxford, which only spoke for the season he had. Scoring 5 in the league last season and contributing 10 assists, the most of any player in the league. He also scored 2 in the Midlands Conference Cup and assisted 3. Ozer will look to be a key player for the Light Blues’ success as they look ahead to the challenge of a new set of teams to play.

Michaelmas looks like an exciting time for Blues football, but will pose challenges for both the men’s and women’s teams. They will mourn the loss of those graduated, but fresh blood has proved key with the likes of Ozer, so the future is bright.