Scotland quidditch team face top dogs
Scotland’s quidditch t eam yes t e r day contested their first home fixture – in the city where JK Rowling introduced the sport to her Harry Potter books.
The fictional game saw players competing in the air on flying broomsticks.
Now more than 20,000 players around the world take part in the game adapted for real life.
Just like Harry Potter and his friends, the players keep a broomstick between their legs but – lacking magical powers – their game is played on foot.
The Scottish Thistles, who recently joined the UK’s elite Quidditch Premier League ( QPL) , took on 2017 champions West Midlands Revolution in the tie at Edinburgh’s Meadows. They lost 170- 50 in the first of a series of ties yesterday.
Co- capt a i n K ieran Newton, 22, a computer security and forensics student at Edinburgh Napier University, said: “The Scottish national team only formed this season so going into this tournament we were seen as underdogs.
“Our f irst match was against a very good team in last year’s Premier League champions, but we gave them a real scare.”
The Scottish Thistles won their first game against the Yorkshire Roses last month.
Standing just a few feet away, snapper George Logan took one of the final images of Sudan, the world’s last male northern white rhino.
Just a few months later, the docile 45-year-old animal – rescued from a Czech zoo and returned to Kenya – died, leaving the species facing certain extinction.
The image of Sudan, who spent his final years under armed guard because of the constant threat of poachers, reminds the award-winning photographer of why he loves the work that he does.
When not travelling the world shooting advertising campaigns for Adidas and Ikea, George heads to Africa to capture stunning images of the world’s most endangered animals.
His emotive pictures have been used in publicity campaigns, billboard posters and calenders for the Born Free Foundation.
George, of Bellshill, Lanarkshire, said: “I must have been about seven years old when I first saw the film Born Free and fell in love with Africa and its wildlife.
“I moved around Scotland a lot as a child – living in places including Airdrie, East Lothian and Edinburgh – and whenever I started a new school, I used to try to make myself sound more interesting by telling people that I had come from Africa.
“I used to say I lived on a farm there and I would tell quite a good tale to the point where I half-believed the stories myself.
“Now I must have visited Africa 200 to 300 times and being around these animals, doing what I can to help protect them, is definitely my passion.”
George took the shot of his daughter Ellie, 25, with Sudan in November last year