The Beginning

Quidditch season is upon us with already one game underway at the time this article was written. Your very own Ravenclaw Quidditch Team has been practicing all summer getting ready for the year ahead with hopes of bringing the cup back to our common room. All of that being said, I was recently promoted over the summer to quidditch co-captain and my what a journey it has been. Let me tell you, being a captain and keeping this team in line is not an easy task!

Let’s go back a bit first, shall we? After several of our players graduated last year, we had plenty of openings on the team. My first task as captain was to host tryouts. In doing so, I decided to run a quidditch recruitment camp to see just what kind of turnout it would bring. I was very surprised indeed to see how many excellent flyers we had in our house.

At the end of camp, a few promising students were invited to try out with the rest of the team and we gained three new members, Austin Ollivander Black, Shadow Gaunt, and Vanessa Tilley, along with Kendra Givens, Alexander Brighton, and Gail Allen who will be joining us for their second season. I am so excited to have them with us!

However, with so much going on, getting this whole team together can be tough for a captain to manage. Austin and Elena are involved with gobstones while Vanessa is a little Hermione and knitting little designs for everyone. Kendra and Alex are constantly catching up with homework while Gail likes to spend time with the giant squid and near the forbidden forest because she has to practice her survival skills or something. Shadow and I like to wait by the pitch and often end up starting practice alone until the rest of the team remembers to join us.

The other day, we finally managed to get most of the team there in one piece and on time. Even Pavel showed up from studying for his OWLs to do some keeping. We split up Shadow, Elena and me versus Gail, Kendra and Pavel. Pavel and I did some keeping while Shadow and Gail chased and Elena and Kendra played beater. It was the most fun many of us had had in practice in a long time. Shadow got past Pavel once which was quite a feat for a new recruit, and Elena hit a bludger right at Gail which nearly knocked her off her broom then swung around and hit Pavel in the face. No worries. He was unharmed and is still ready to go for our first game.

Our current team is rocking it on the pitch whether they make team practice or not. As a captain, it is always a joy to see how the team is improving. We have nervous flyers now sometimes speeding past me, we have fearful beaters bludgering those bludgers with the bats as hard they can (and in the right direction I might add), and we have people doing flips around the goal posts when they’re keeping just because they can.

I cannot wait until we come out of our locker room, proudly wearing our blue and bronze uniforms, and fly up into the sky for the rest of the school to see.

Thank you for joining me for this issue of Tales from the Pitch! We hope to see you out there cheering when our first game comes along!