In January, Fulford Ultimate sent three teams to the indoor National Championship Finals for the Under 20 age group. Fulford won the outdoor version of this event in dramatic circumstances back in June 2025, so the players were hungry to show they were the best indoors too. Held at the Alan Higgs centre in Coventry, a favourite venue of many of the players, the players were keen to show off the hard work they’d been doing.
Across the course of the weekend, all players across each of the teams showed their class and expertise in lots of different ways. The teamwork and friendship across all Fulford players was really evident with lots of sideline support and cheerleading for each other.
The third team did extremely well in a competitive division to finish 10th (out of 18). Mostly being Y9, Y10 and Y11 students, they have plenty more chances to compete at U20 level over the next few years.
The second team suffered from a tough schedule on the Saturday, and went back to the hotel for the evening knowing that the highest they could possibly finish was 9th. Despite this, they showed immense professionalism and turned up on Sunday with a point to prove. And…they proved their point. They cruised through their games on Sunday, with a combined score of 46-11 across four games, securely finishing in 9th place, with only a tinge of Saturday’s disappointment remaining.
The first team, brimming with experience, quality, and class, turned up on the Saturday of the tournament with gold in their eyes and a target on their backs. Being the current outdoor champions came with a certain amount of pressure, and adding the indoor gold to their collection was the only job on their to-do list this weekend. The first group stage proved straightforward, undefeated with a combined score of 47-9 across four games. Progressing into the upper power pools, they met some tough opponents for the first time, but stayed undefeated – narrowly beating the defending 2025 U20 indoor champions from Leamington Spa by a nail-biting score of 8-7. This meant Fulford 1 progressed into the semi-finals where an ambitious team from Reading put up a great fight, but Fulford prevailed and – again by just one point – got themselves into the final.
After composing themselves following a tough morning, the first team stumbled into the final and weren’t quite ready for the gold medal match in the same way their opponents (the team from Leamington Spa) were. Fulford struggled for the first 15 minutes or so, and found themselves 7-3 down with time running away from them. It looked like curtains for the first team, and the potential of a lost final. What happened next was nothing short of extraordinary: in the 8 minutes of time remaining, Fulford 1 managed to up the intensity, up the quality, extract that last remaining piece of energy, and they turned the game around into a 10-9 victory some are calling ‘The Miracle of Alan Higgs’. The teamwork was astonishing, the throws precise, the effort electric, and the celebrations from all the Fulford players from all three teams was wonderful.
It’s a stunning achievement to win a National Championship. The standard across the whole tournament was the best it’s ever been, and for both semi-finals and the final to each be won by just one point showed the quality and character it takes to compete at the highest level – and Fulford, in the U20 division, sit right at the top both indoors and outdoors.