It’s coming home, it’s coming home – Quidditch that is

Scottish team’s first home fixture in Edinburgh proves a spellbinding affair

Scotland’s national Quidditch team has contested its first home fixture – in the city where JK Rowling introduced the sport to her Harry Potter fantasies.

Quidditch originated as a fictional game devised by author Rowling to be played by the young witches and wizards at Hogwarts, with 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 wizarding friends, the players keep a broomstick between their legs, but, lacking their magical powers, their fastpaced 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 their first ever home tie, played in front of a crowd on The Meadows, going down 170-50 in the first of a series of matches.

Co-captain Kieran 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 first match was against a very good team in last year’s Premier League champions, but we gave them a real scare.”

In real-life Quidditch teams have seven players per team on the pitch at any one time, each holding a broom between their legs and scoring points into hooped goals.

Picture: Mike Day. A bit of wizardry: The Thistles in action.