Three projects run at The University of Hull are delivered through the FA’s College and University Football hub, of which 10 universities currently use the Upshot system. Through the FA’s partnership with British Universities & College Sports (BUCS) and the Association for Colleges (AoC Sport), they aim to deliver football to over 70,000 grassroots players over the next year. The FA Football Hubs model calls for Further and Higher Education establishments to forge partnerships with the local football community by offering access to their playing facilities.
The University of Hull use Upshot to monitor and evaluate three other internal projects – Campus Sport and Campus Squash – both of which are run with the aim of increasing sports participation and improving the sporting experience in Hull – and the third project, West Hull, which is run with the aim of increasing community engagement and development in the Hull area. Sophie Johnson, the Sport Experience Coordinator at The University of Hull, emphasised to us the great positive impact Upshot has had in assisting the team in delivering their work in a more, ‘fast, efficient, accurate and reliable way’.
Sophie goes on to explain how she has managed to embed Upshot into her everyday work life and describes how Upshot has revolutionised the way her and her team work:
"Previously, we were just using Excel. Again, it was very time consuming, not as accurate as Upshot, and it was just very long-winded (I think it was on paper). So, to have Upshot now, where you can get thousands of data within seconds is fantastic and obviously it makes my job a lot easier when I’m doing the monitoring side of things."
As well as the University of Hull, the University of Leeds, Middlesex University and Durham University all successfully use Upshot to aid them in the monitoring and evaluation of their wider sports programmes. Feedback given to us from universities that currently use the system are all positive and describe Upshot as having ‘made our lives a lot easier. I think it is absolutely fantastic, all the service and support we do receive from Upshot is absolutely brilliant.’ – Sophie Johnson
If you have any questions, or are interested in finding out more please contact us on 020 7842 8899 or info@upshot.org.uk
Sources:
The FA: New Education-Grassroots Partnership
The University of Hull website
