The Harry Potter game has become top sport in 400 US universities

Muggle Quidditch sweeps colleges

The Harry Potter game has become top sport in 400 US universities

It might look like a cross between a fancy dress party and a handball game, but this is Harry Potter's magical game of Quidditch brought to life by 'muggles'.

Happy feet: A player gets the quaffle between his feet but keeps the broom in his hands during a Quidditch match between Princeton and Middlebury

Students have not let gravity get in the way of a good game and are donning capes and straddling broomsticks in a bid to recreate J K Rowling's famous sport.

While it lacks a magical spark -- and the ability to fly around the pitch -- the game for muggles (non-magical people) does not appear to be short of fun.

It is now so popular that more than 400 university teams in the US are following the rules laid down in the Harry Potter novels.

The game sticks to most of Rowling's rules including having chasers and the quaffle, or ball. Theu00a0 result is a cross between dodgeball and handball, with a bit of lacrosse thrown in.

Players must keep to their brooms at all times and are penalised with yellow or red wands for foul play.

Instead of flying around of broomsticks like Harry Potter and his best friend Ron Weasley, the teams run around with sticks or brooms between their legs.

National level

Alex Benepe, the Intercollegiate Quidditch Commissioner, who wears a top hat to games, said, "It started off as a very silly dorm sport and now it's evolving into this national thing."


	The rules
	Teams have seven players: three chasers, two beaters, a keeper, and a seeker. Chasers score points by throwing a quaffle through one of three hoops, which is worth 10 points, while trying to avoid bludgers that are thrown by beaters. If chasers are hit by a bludger, they must drop the quaffle. The keeper's job is to protect the goalposts, while the seeker must capture the snitch -- a sock stuffed with a tennis ball tied around a person's waist dressed in gold. Capturing the snitch nets 30 points and ends the game.

Katie Stack, who plays for Boston University's team said the game is a lot harder than it looks and just as awkward.

"We're a small, kind of ragtag group," she said. "Not everyone has brooms yet, so some people play with Wiffle bats or lacrosse sticks. And we only have two hoops. You're supposed to have three on each end of the field," she added.

Even Ivy League institutions such as Harvard, Princeton and Yale universities have teams.

Emily J Yorke, a student at Harvard, said, "I thought it was a great idea to get involved because I loved Harry Potter and Quidditch is such an intense sport.

"It's not just a running game because you have to hold up the broom the whole time and it does make you slower. It is a bit harder because the twigs get the back of your legs."

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