FIFA 20 College Lockdown Championships winners announced

The inaugural AoC Sport FIFA 20 College Lockdown Championships tournament has concluded and the winners have been revealed.

Alice Leaman looks back on the competition.

 

Hills Road College Sixth Form and Priestley College have emerged as victors in the FIFA 20 College Lockdown Championships, in the PS4 and Xbox tournaments respectively.

The British Esports Association partnered with further education body AoC Sport to run the FIFA tournament for college students during the lockdown period. 

With lockdown affecting students’ abilities to partake in their college sport activities, the FIFA 20 Championships enabled students to continue to represent their college online in a national competition, from home, while promoting teamwork, communication and sportsmanship

Teams from 47 different colleges competed in the tournament overall. Each team consisted of three players.

Weekly fixtures took place from May 13th to June 17th, with a strict code of conduct and ruleset in place. Swiss format was used throughout the tournament and many colleges appointed student captains to help organise the fixtures, giving students more chances for higher levels of responsibility and leadership.

Both Hills Road Sixth Form College and Priestley College will receive winners’ trophies.

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Playstation 4

32 colleges took part in the PS4 tournament across the country. The final was between Hills Road Sixth Form College and East Norfolk Sixth Form College. 

For the final fixture, Hills Road Sixth Form remained strong in a dominant win against East Norfolk, without losing any games within the fixture.

Result: Hills Road Sixth Form College 9-0 East Norfolk Sixth Form College

Hills Road Sixth Form was represented by Peter Creed (Captain), Joe Nwajei, and Kaan Velioglu.

View the full leaderboard and final standings here.

 

Xbox One

For the Xbox One tournament there were more teams involved – 36 overall. Due to this, the Xbox competition ran for one week longer than the Playstation 4 tournament. 

The final was between Priestley College and Winstanley College.

In a very close match-up, Priestley College managed to secure the win from Winstanley in the final game of the fixture.

Result: Priestley College 5-4 Winstanley College

View the full leaderboard and final standings here.

Priestley College was represented by Chris Green, Alex Flint, and Ben Mason.

 

‘The values of teamwork and pride have been very much on display’

“Many congratulations to Hills Road Sixth Form College and Priestley College on their victories in this inaugural AoC Sport and BEA FIFA competition,” said Dean Hardman, AoC Director of Sport and Student Experience.

“Everyone at AoC Sport has been delighted with the level of interest from member colleges and the interest that the competition has generated. The values of teamwork and pride have been very much on display, and we hope that players have enjoyed participating as much as we have enjoyed providing this competition.

Following the success of this tournament, we look forward to offering further FIFA tournaments in association with our partners at British Esports Association next season.”

“Congratulations to all the teams who took part in the FIFA 20 competition. It has been fantastic to see the level of participation from the staff and students alike,” said Alice Leaman, Schools and Colleges Liaison Officer for British Esports. “We are proud to offer students further opportunities to represent their college during lockdown and encourage more colleges to discover the benefits of esports.” 

“Where we had hoped to be in a position to run a showcase final between the final teams, this is presently not possible due to continued uncertainties regarding lockdown procedure. However, following the strong success of this tournament, we are looking forward to rolling out further FIFA competitions in the future.”

 

The British Esports Championships

The separate British Esports Association runs the British Esports Championships for students aged 12+ in schools and colleges across the UK. School and college teams play each other throughout the academic term in weekly online fixtures, across 3 different age appropriate games: Overwatch (12+), Rocket League (3+), and League of Legends (12+).

If you are interested in taking part in our Championships, you can register your interest here.

Please note this tournament is not affiliated with or sponsored by Electronic Arts Inc. or its licensors.

“The tournament was a fantastic experience for all involved and allowed the students to play competitively at a high level. With esports ever present at Hills Road, there was a lot of interest in the tournament prior to the tournament starting and resulted in us having to host preliminary games to establish the team that would represent the college. For this team to go on and win the whole tournament is a huge achievement and something to be celebrated!”
Ayden Duffy, Head of Sport at Hills Road Sixth Form College

“During one of the most difficult times this competition has provided some much-needed light relief for our students. We would like to thank the AOC for filling the void that was left when we had to end competitive sport and to British Esports for running an extremely efficient competition. I would personally like to thank Chris, Alex and Ben who have performed impeccably during the competition and also for dedicating their personal time to represent the college.”
Dan Jordan, Head of Football at Priestley College

Priestley socials:

Facebook: @PriestleyCollegeWarrington

Instagram: Sportpriestley

Priestley Sports department Twitter: @PriestleySport

Main College Twitter: @priestleysfc

Hills Road socials:

Twitter: @HillsRoadNews

Facebook: @HillsRoadNews

Instagram: hillsroadnews