Interview with UMON Div 1 Winning Captain: Andrew Warnock

Interviewer/Editor: Nic
Additional Editing: hazard

Now University Ultimate is over for another season, we spoke to Strathclyde’s Men’s Captain: Andrew Warnock, about their victory at Division 1 University Outdoor Men’s Nationals. They took the majority of the titles and made history for Strathclyde Ultimate! Their Women also took Bronze at Division 1, everything they have achieved has been incredible and not something to be overlooked. #Strathclydedominance

Photo credit - Jack Hughes

Introduce yourself and your team, tell us about you guys

I'm Andrew Warnock, the men's captain for Strathclyde. We've had an incredibly successful year winning 4 of the 6 national championships as a club!

How does it feel to lift that trophy and truly be the best University Men’s team in the UK?

Clichéd as ever, but it's been a long time coming. After finishing 4th in Division 2 in my first year the club has been on a meteoric rise, and from the start of this year we set a goal of winning this tournament and tried to train as the best team in the country every week. Relief and elation are the overriding emotions at the moment though.

After your bronze medal last year, how has your team developed over the last 12 months to take the trophy this time?

It's quite easy for a team to improve when 4 of its players play World's, and a lot of the others played throughout the summer when they could. 

But this year we also had Shaun Webb come on board as coach. He committed himself to the season 100%, brought a level of professionalism to the trainings that very few uni's must have, and made sure that every single player on the team had a role and performed it to the best of their ability.

What were your trainings like? How frequent were they?

We had Men’s Outdoor BUCS training once a week. Again, we always had in our minds at these trainings that no other team in the country would be training harder or better than us but, there was also a real team spirit that made it easy to enjoy. 

On top of this, there was also another whole club outdoor session, and two other indoor sessions each week. Priority for attending them did differ throughout the year but the men's trainings stayed very consistent.

That is a huge commitment from your men that a lot of university teams struggle to maintain, what is the secret to such strong commitment from the team?

It's difficult to pinpoint, but the depth of Strathclyde as a club is ridiculous - highlighted by things like sending 4 teams to University Men’s and Women’s Indoor Nationals.  So at the majority of trainings numbers weren't an issue. However, this does create some competition for spots on the team. So I think each person knew that if they weren't going to commit fully they might not be a part of the team that ends up winning Nationals!

Considering the depth and commitment of your squad, do you think you are going to be able to hold on to your title next year? How different is Strathclyde going to look?

There will be a few players leaving the team that played a huge role in the win. But the 'so called' less experienced lads on the team at the weekend stepped up more than I could ever of hoped so I have no doubt the club will continue to thrive. As a club we also really emphasize growing and teaching the new players so we certainly won't be a one and done kinda club. In my first ever proper tournament I remember watching Strathclyde firsts winning Men’s Indoor Regionals which was a pretty big deal at the time. It inspired me to want to win with them as well so I'm hoping our success this weekend can do the same for some of the fresher’s.

Are you leaving?...
Are there any players that deserve a particular special mention?

I am leaving (although there is a small chance of a panic masters...).

Gio Cabrera was my handling partner the whole weekend and just came up huge in every important part of the weekend, Ben Cornelius played as good as I've ever seen him play and was probably the most relaxed player on the pitch at each moment. Most uni teams have one big dude that'll be pretty unstoppable going downfield but we had two in Cameron Mackie and Ian Tait - probably the only people capable of stopping the other one. I feel like I could just say something about every one of my teammates but that might take a while.

Saturday didn’t seem as comfortable for you - although you didn’t play bad it certainly wasn’t your strongest performance. What made the difference between Saturday and Sunday?

Losing to Birmingham in the pools was a bit of a wakeup call for us. As you said we didn't play badly but little things didn't quite go our way and Birmingham I think just wanted it more than we did. However on the Sunday there was a clear mental shift and everybody seemed to work much harder for each other and we realised that if we gave everything and played to our best ability no team was good enough to stop us.

As mentioned in previous interviews with yourself, I didn’t hear Wonderwall once over the weekend (and I watched a fair few of your games). What prepared you for the games? Any pre-match rituals/new songs? Something that would increase your mentality going into the game?

Wonderwall usually features (with no exception this weekend) on the bus ride in, so fear not we didn't stray from the norm. But we did change up the warm ups on a couple of occasions so we didn't get bored, for instance we played goalty before our quarter vs Edinburgh. Also there are a few squad members who are Liverpool fans (myself included) so most (all) of our songs/chants for during games are stolen from them.

What was your personal highlight of the weekend?

There were so many big plays/throws/bids especially on the Sunday, but Ben Cornelius' roly poly grab in the final has got to top it!

Ah, we put a name to the face! That did look rather cool. Any particular game/s that stood out?

Definitely the final. Birmingham are such an athletic, well spirited, enjoyable team to play against and we have matched up with them in the later stages of just about every Nationals this year. At University Mixed Indoor Nationals we played hacky sack with them before we played each other in the semi. Since then there has been a real mutual respect that has followed onto the pitch!

Any shock surprises you found over the weekend? 

The top 4 was exactly as I expected, and the only real surprise was seeing Glasgow outside the top 8, but with a tricky pool and no crossovers it's a shame we couldn't get a few more Scottish teams finishing nearer the top. In the Women's Division, I was very surprised to see Edinburgh in the final! Repping Scotland well and a huge result for them to get a silver.

As you mentioned the lack of crossovers between the top and bottom eight in Men’s Division 1, it did upset a few teams.
What were your thoughts on the tournament in general?

It was nice for us not to have to play a crossover despite coming 2nd in the pool so I can't say it really affected us negatively in anyway. The teams that deserved medals all ended up with them. But as always the general running of the tournament was excellent. Literally nothing went wrong from our perspective which when you consider the scale of the tournament with the number of divisions being held is quite remarkable. So big kudos to UKU and all its staff for that!

So, Spirit. First, did you complete your spirit scores (some teams hadn’t filled out any), and what are your thoughts on completing spirit nowadays? And how did you find your weekend overall?

I did do the spirit scores! I have seen a lot of chat recently about spirit at university level, and about if teams should have spirit captains. Although, we didn't have a spirit captain it was pretty much my role as captain but it fairly easy to do because every game we played was well spirited. I'm not sure how you solve the problem of teams simply not filling out scores, apart from punishing them somehow. But it does just seem like the idea of spirit at university level has never been something that has been particularly important, and winning a spirit prize is just seen as a small added bonus instead of something to actually be celebrated. For this to change there would have to be a pretty significant shift in the mind-set of most teams. However saying this, small changes like being able to see comments made from submissions can help if there is something that certain teams need to work on. Maybe more small changes like this could make a big difference.

Any parting goodbyes (if you’re actually leaving) and well wishes to your past/present/future Strathclyde teammates?

Just a huge thank you to all the guys and gals at Strathclyde that have made my uni life an incredible experience! But to those staying around for next year, hopefully I've taught them that their degree should always come second to Frisbee!


Congrats and well done Strathclyde for a hugely successful year! Good luck and party hard.