Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland

he necessity for keeping the game of Quidditch secret from Muggles means that the Department of Magical Games and Sports has had to limit the number of games played each year. While amateur games are permitted as long as the appropriate guidelines are followed, professional Quidditch teams have been limited in number since 1674 when the League was established. At that time, the thirteen best Quidditch teams in Britain and Ireland were selected to join the League and all others were asked to disband. The thirteen teams continue to compete each year for the League Cup.

Appleby Arrows

This northern English team was founded in 1612. Its robes are pale blue, emblazoned with a silver arrow. Arrows fans will agree that their team's most glorious hour was their 1932 defeat of the team who were then the European champions, the Vratsa Vultures, in a match that lasted sixteen days in conditions of dense fog and rain. The club supporters' old practice of shooting arrows into the air from their wands every time their Chasers scored was banned by the Department of Magical Games and Sports in 1894, when one of these weapons pierced the referee Nugent Potts through the nose. There is traditionally fierce rivalry between the Arrows and the Wimbourne Wasps (see below).

Ballycastle Bats

Northern Ireland's most celebrated Quidditch team has won the Quidditch League a total of twenty‑seven times to date, making it the second most successful in the League's history. The Bats wear black robes with a scarlet bat across the chest. Their famous mascot Barny the Fruitbat is also well known as the bat featured in Butterbeer advertisements (Barny says: I'm just batty about Butterbeer!).

Caerphilly Catapults

Welsh Catapults, formed in 1402, wear vertically striped robes of light green and scarlet. Their distinguished club history includes eighteen League wins and a famous triumph in the European Cup final of 1956, when they defeated the Norwegian Karasjok Kites. The tragic demise of their most famous player, 'Dangerous Dai' Llewellyn, who was eaten by a Chimaera while on holiday in Mykonos, Greece, resulted in a day of national mourning for all Welsh witches and wizards. The Dangerous Dai Commemorative Medal is now awarded at the end of each season to the League player who has taken the most exciting and foolhardy risks during a game.

Chudley Cannons

The Chudley Cannons' glory days may be considered by many to be over, but their devoted fans live in hope of a renaissance. The Cannons have won the League twenty–one times, but the last time they did so was in 1892 and their performance over the last century has been lacklustre. The Chudley Cannons wear robes of bright orange emblazoned with a speeding cannon ball and a double 'C' in black. The club motto was changed in 1972 from 'We shall conquer' to 'Let's all just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best'.

Falmouth Falcons

The Falcons wear dark–grey and white robes with a falcon–head emblem across the chest. The Falcons an known for hard play, a reputation consolidated by their world–famous Beaters, Kevin and Karl Broadmoor, who played for the club from 1958 to 1969 and whose antics resulted in no fewer than fourteen suspensions from the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Club motto: 'Let us win, but if we cannot win, let us break a few heads.'

Holyhead Harpies

The Holyhead Harpies is a very old Welsh club (founded 1203) unique among Quidditch teams around the world because it has only ever hired witches. Harpy robes are dark green with a golden talon upon the chest. Th Harpies' defeat of the Heidelberg Harriers in 1953 is widely agreed to have been one of the finest Quidditch games ever seen. Fought over a seven–day period, the game was brought to an end by a spectacular Snitch capture by the Harpy Seeker Glynnis Griffiths. The Harriers' Captain Rudolf Brand famously dismounted from his broom at the end of the match and proposed marriage to his opposite number, Gwendolyn Morgan, who concussed him with her Cleansweep Five.

Kenmare Kestrels

This Irish side was founded in 1291 and is popular worldwide for the spirited displays of their leprechaun mascots and the accomplished harp playing of their supporters. The Kestrels wear emerald–green robes with two yellow 'K's back to back on the chest. Darren O'Hare, Kestrel Keeper 1947–60, captained the Irish National Team three times and is credited with the invention of the Chaser Hawkshead Attacking Formation (see Chapter Ten).

Montrose Magpies

The Magpies are the most successful team in the history of the British and Irish League, which they have won thirty–two times. Twice European Champions, the Magpies have fans across the globe. Their many outstanding players include the Seeker Eunice Murray (died 1942), who once petitioned for a 'faster Snitch because this is just too easy', and Hamish MacFarlan (Captain 1957–68), who followed his successful Quidditch career with an equally illustrious period as Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports. The Magpies wear black and white robes with one magpie on the chest and another on the back.

Pride of Portree

This team comes from the Isle of Skye, where it was founded in 1292. The 'Prides', as they are known to their fans, wear deep–purple robes with a gold star on the chest. Their most famous Chaser, Catriona McCormack, captained the team to two League wins in the 1960s and played for Scotland thirty–six times. Her daughter Meaghan currently plays Keeper for the team. (Her son Kirley is lead guitarist with the popular wizarding band The Weird Sisters.)

Puddlemere United

Founded in 1163, Puddlemere United is the oldest team in the League. Puddlemere has twenty–two League wins and two European Cup triumphs to its credit. Its team anthem 'Beat Back Those Bludgers, Boys, and Chuck That Quaffle Here' was recently recorded by the singing sorceress Celestina Warbeck to raise funds for St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Puddlemere players wear navy–blue robes bearing the club emblem of two crossed golden bulrushes.

Tutshill Tornados

The Tornados wear sky–blue robes with a double 'T' in dark blue on the chest and back. Founded in 1520, the Tornados enjoyed their greatest period of success in the early twentieth century when, captained by Seeker Roderick Plumpton, they won the League Cup five times in a row, a British and Irish record. Roderick Plumpton played Seeker for England twenty–two times and holds the British record for fastest capture of a Snitch during a game (three and a half seconds, against Caerphilly Catapults, 1921).

Wigtown Wanderers

This Borders club was founded in 1422 by the seven offspring of a wizarding butcher named Walter Parkin. The four brothers and three sisters were by all accounts a formidable team who rarely lost a match, partly, it is said, because of the intimidation felt by opposing teams at the sight of Walter standing on the sidelines with a wand in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other. A Parkin descendant has often been found on the Wigtown team over the centuries and in tribute to their origins, the players wear blood–red robes with a silver meat cleaver upon the chest.

Wimbourne Wasps

The Wimbourne Wasps wear horizontally striped robes of yellow and black with a wasp upon their chests. Founded in 1312, the Wasps have been eighteen times League winners and twice semi–finalists in the European Cup. They are alleged to have taken their name from a nasty incident which occurred during a match against the Appleby Arrows in the mid–seventeenth century, when a Beater flying past a tree on the edge of the pitch noticed wasps' nest among the branches and batted it towards the Arrows' Seeker, who was so badly stung that he had to retire from the game. Wimbourne won and thereafter adopted the wasp as their lucky emblem. Wasp fans (also known as 'Stingers') traditionally buzz loudly to distract opposing Chasers when they are taking penalties.

Chapter Eight