BUCS is Back! An off-season of change is done as we enter Week 1 of fixtures.

We enter a new era in BUCS Football with the introduction of a National Premiership, which shakes up some of the divisions below. You can see how each division stacks up in our previous article.

Week 1 is a relatively quiet kick-off weekend as we only see three games, 2 in the “newest” division, the Premier North, and one in the Premier South

Premier North

Leeds Gryphons v Warwick Wolves

The Premier North is where we’ll see new fixtures as teams find themselves shuffled into this division. Warwick have been competitive in the Midlands for some time but have always found themselves the nearly men in the playoffs.

Leeds are a similar type of outfit from the North who went 7-1 in their division but came up against NTU in the playoffs, who they’ll face again later in this season.

Newcastle Raiders v Liverpool Raptors

Like Leeds, Liverpool benefits from the reshuffle and they step up from a very competitive Northern division too. They’ll come up against a Newcastle team who struggled in the Premier North last year against teams who have all taken the leap up to the Premier National this year.

It’ll be difficult to get a handle on this division until we have some data points but that's the joy of BUCS football!

Premier South

Cardiff Cobras v Birmingham Lions

We see a rematch of a Premier South staple fixture as the Lions make the trip across the border to face Cardiff. Birmingham swept this fixture last year, winning 14-21 in Wales and 27-17 back in “Brum” at their annual xpLosION event.

However, there have been big changes to the Lions coaching staff as they are bringing in a new HC and several key names also graduating, it’ll be interesting to see what product they put on the field.

Cardiff only came away with two wins last year, but they’ll be looking at that fixture against the Lions for motivation to get their first win on the board early going into the 2024/25 season.

We hope everyone involved this week the best of luck and it’s great to have football back after a few weeks off! You can keep up to date with all the scores, fixtures, and standings using the Game Centre or Standing tabs on the menu bar at the top of the page.