2024-2025 was the year of the TCBCs; both the boat club and badminton had historic seasons at the highest echelons of college sport. My experience is very much with the latter, preferring a roof and my racket to rowing in the rain. Last season for Trevs Badminton truly was record-breaking. We played 21 matches as a club across the three disciplines, men’s, women’s, and mixed, winning 20 of those. Women’s went invincible, winning the Premiership, and men’s also went undefeated, winning Division 1 and promotion back into the Premiership.

Mixed, in their first season back in the Premiership, were the non-invincibles, winning all but one of their games. That game was against Van Mildert A, the behemoths of college badminton, to whom we lost 1-8 in our very first game of the season. Still, at the season’s conclusion, we finished level on points with both Mildert A and Collingwood A at the top of the mixed Premiership; Mildert beat us, we beat Collingwood, and Collingwood beat Mildert. Each would win the rest of their games. An optimist would say we finished joint first, but I think technically Mildert took the title on points difference under last season’s format. 

We would, however, find sweet revenge, as Women’s beat Mildert in their final game of the season title decider, 5-4. Unable to play in this one, I watched nervously as my co-president, Cindy, played in the match, which was tied at 4-4 with one game left. Luckily, some heroics from Daisy Hill, one of many stalwarts from last season, in her final match for Trevs, were enough to secure a tie-breaker victory and bring the Premiership title home for the women’s team. This was a momentous achievement for Trevs Badminton, beating the better-resourced Mildert in a David vs Goliath end-of-season title decider and bringing home the silverware. The wooden plaque the women’s team received for this feat no doubt leaves an envious gap in Mildert’s monopolistic haul of Premiership titles in recent years. 

This was a momentous achievement for Trevs Badminton, beating the better-resourced Mildert in a David vs Goliath end-of-season title decider…

Now, fast forward to this season. The remainder of last season’s core, having lost seven team players who were finalists, plus some new faces, sit in a remarkably similar position. In mixed, we played Mildert in our first game of the season again, this time agonisingly losing, 4-5, but much improved compared to last year’s 1-8. In men’s, we had the grace of a warm-up against JoBo B in our return to the Premiership, but then the fate of playing Mildert A in our second game. It was copy-and-paste; we lost 4-5. This one was excruciating. Two losses by the absolute finest of margins, almost as if the Premiership loss in the women’s last season was still at the forefront of their minds.  

Trevs Mixed A after victory against Castle Mixed A. Image: Trevs Badminton

As is the nature of anyone who is highly competitive, there were a plethora of excuses I could make for you about these results. Our star player, Ivan Cane, was ineligible to play in both matches due to involvement in DU as a member of team C+; a rule which was revoked a couple of games later. Would this have made the difference? Absolutely, at least I think so. In men’s, Mildert had three DU players to our zero, and the heroic Liang Wu had to play in two pairs, playing six of the nine games. If Ivan could have played, I’m almost certain we could have picked up one more game. The same in mixed, Mildert allegedly had five DU players to our one. Again, if Ivan could’ve played, I think the score might’ve been different. 

If the matches against Mildert simply fell later in the season, we could have seen vastly different results. However, the keyword there is ‘could have’. Maybe we wouldn’t have performed and still would have lost. Who knows. There’s also been plenty of allegations of gamesmanship floated around about Mildert over the course of their era of dominance, but that’s usually the case when you have a dominant force in sport; people can only rationalise this by assuming some rule-bending or foul play is at hand. Similarly, we could bemoan that they have two full-sized courts in their dining hall, which they allegedly train on six times a week. We, on the other hand, have one non-full-sized court in the JKH, which we train on twice a week, with two extra sessions outside of College for team players. 

But the harsh truth is, we did lose those games. Fair and square. And sometimes, even beneath the fiercest competition, you just have to accept that. Two years ago, the men’s team weren’t even in the Premiership. Now we sit top, having won four out of five, albeit Mildert do have a game in hand. Similarly, the mixed team was not in the Premiership two years ago, and now sits in joint-second, having finished level on points with Mildert last year. Women’s has had a tougher start, tasked with replacing three veterans of the club in Daisy Hill, Cindy Wu, and Cathy Zhou. Experiencing a few teething issues, they lost the first game of the season to a new, perhaps unexpected challenger in Grey, but found their rhythm to beat JoBo in their second game 9-0. Yet to play Mildert, the women’s squad are again our only hope at leaving our mark on them this year.

Trevs Badminton has cemented its place right at the top of the College divisions

Even if this season isn’t going to be 20 wins from 21, two titles, and missing out on points difference in the third, Trevs Badminton has cemented its place right at the top of the College divisions; perhaps best showcased in the fact that we were selected to represent DU in Varsity against both York and Loughborough in 2025. Sometimes there’s satisfaction to be found in knowing that you leave something better off than you found it, and I’m sure that the successes of the last two seasons will be replicated by our very talented new cohort of players.

 With only a couple of games left before college badminton retirement, I take great satisfaction in what we have collectively achieved over the last two years. Will it play on my mind that I could potentially finish my college career three matches, two of them decided by individual games, away from three Premiership titles? And that I personally never got the better of Mildert on court? One hundred per cent. But that’s the curse of anyone who is grossly competitive. What my time at Trevs Badminton has shown me is that there’s as much joy to be found in competing and in community, even if that means falling just short of what you wished to achieve in a sporting sense. I leave with so many of my best memories and closest friends having come from within Trevs Badminton, something far more valuable than bragging rights or a wooden plaque. Though I do leave in the hope that one of our newer recruits drops me a text next year that reads ‘we got them…’ 

Go well, Trevs Badminton, and, reluctantly, kudos Mildert. We’ll get you one day. 

Cover image: Trevs Badminton