Quidditch: a new sports craze bewitching muggles

The 7th Quidditch World Cup kicked off on April 5th, on North Myrtle Beach in the United States. Based on a magical sport concocted by JK Rowling in the Harry Potter novels, fans made this sport into a real game, which is rapidly gaining popularity world wide.

For a generation that grew up reading Harry Potter and imagining wizards swooping around a playing field on broomsticks, traditional sports like football may seem a little bit tame. That’s why, in 2005, a group of students from Vermont's Middlebury College decided to make Quidditch a reality.

In the books, players fly around the pitch chasing balls that have been bewitched to move around. The Chaser’s role is to score points by throwing the’ quaffle’ (a type of ball) through a hoop. The keeper guards his team’s hoops from the opponent. The beater’s role is to protect his team from two 'bludgers' (a more aggressive kind of ball that can knock players from their brooms). And the seeker’s sole purpose is to catch the snitch, a small, incredibly fast ball.

For non-wizards, this translates into an insane looking spectator sport. Dodgeballs are used as bludgers, and volleyballs are the real-world versions of quaffles. All players run with broomsticks precariously gripped between their legs, and a “snitch runner” with a tennis ball in a sock tucked into their waist tries to elude capture within preset boundaries.

This sport rapidly gained popularity in the US and across the world. In 2007, the International Quidditch Association (IQA) was founded, with the goal of making Quidditch more than just a sport. The founder’s mission was to promote gender inclusivity, to encourage a healthy lifestyle and to create a tolerant sport that everyone could play.

Today, there are over 300 quidditch teams worldwide, and the craze seems to be more than just a fad. For this year’s Quidditch world cup, faced with a great demand from national teams wanting to compete, the IQA had to stage regional championships in 3 continents to determine the finalists. And for the first time, in January 2014, a Quidditch match was shown on cable television in the United States. Perhaps before long Quidditch will compete with Cricket on our television screens.