BUTC 2015 will be hosted by East Anglia and will take place on Saturday 21st February. The University of East Anglia is based in Norwich, which will become the 9th different host city in the competition's 13th year.
The 2014/15 season promises to be a very important one for the relatively young club at UEA. As well as hosting a national competition for the first time, the club will make their official regional league debut in SEAL, tomorrow at Kent. Having never been there previously, 2015 will be the second successive BUTC in the SEAL region. East Anglia themselves have shot at all BUTCs since 2011, although they have yet to get past the first KO round. East Anglia's best BUTC performance came in 2013, when they finished the Bray I in 19th place, before losing to 14th seeds Keele by a single disc, 5-6.
BUTC is simultaneously the easiest and hardest national competition to win. All you have to do is win your 5 KO matches - the catch is you have to win them all. The 2015 entry form has not been published yet, but to get you in the BUTC mood, here are three of your editor's most memorable hit/miss matches from down the years.
2009 R32 - Keele A v Essex
16th vs 17th should be a close match and in 2009, 16th placed Keele A qualified 13 points ahead of Essex in the Bray I. Sure enough the match was all square at 7-7 after the regulation 24 arrows. The match went to a shoot off, which ended at 1-1, requiring a second shoot off for only the second ever time. With all eyes now on this match, the second shoot off also ended 1-1. As the match went on (and on) it seemed ever more likely that the next disc could be the winner - and so it proved. The third shoot off ended hit-less, so Keele's unanswered hit in the fourth shoot off was decisive. In the second round, Keele went on to lose 17-11 to top seeds Warwick A. Remarkably this was Essex's first ever taste of the yellow discs. At 36* arrows, this quadruple shoot off remains BUTC's longest ever match.
* Editor's note - article used to say 48 which is wrong! The match was subsequently equalled in length by the 2015 QF between Nottingham A and Birmingham A.2010 R32 - St Andrews v Oxford
This match is still the biggest upset as defined by difference in seedings. St Andrews qualified 28th in the Bray I and were playing Oxford who had qualified 5th. The match was surprisingly even with Oxford unable to exert their expected dominance. The longer the match went on, the more likely Oxford should have been to move ahead, but the regulation match ended 7-7. As the seconds ticked away, St Andrews had one definite hit from 3 arrows shot and Oxford had one likely hit from two arrows shot. Oxford's third arrow missed, but crucially it was launched after the buzzer. The penalty, losing the highest scoring arrow, meant that instead of 1-1 and a second shoot off, Oxford lost the shoot off and the match. St Andrews didn't get any further in the competition, losing 4-8 in the round of 16.
2011 SF - Birmingham A v Edinburgh A
For all the supposed randomness of hit/miss, only one team qualifying outside the top 6 has ever made the final. That team was Birmingham A in 2011 and along the way, they knocked out 3 of the top 5 qualifiers, after a qualification round that left them seeded 21st. They beat 5th seeds Loughborough 11-10 to become one of the lowest seeds ever to make a QF, where they ran in to 4th seeds Edinburgh B. An unexpected 10-8 win later, Birmingham A faced Edinburgh A - defending champions and on home soil - in the semis. Edinburgh A led early, but never built a sizeable advantage, whilst Birmingham A repeatedly flirted with the buzzer. Somehow Birmingham stayed in touch and were level with one end to go. In the last end, Birmingham snatched an improbable win 12-11, before losing to Nottingham in the final.
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