A Harry Potter-inspired sport is helping Liverpool’s LGBTQ+ community “figure out” their identity.
Quidditch, a “full contact, mixed gender-inclusive sport” combining elements of handball, dodgeball, and rugby has been around for almost two decades now and has consistently been at the forefront of inclusivity when it comes to its players. The city has its own team, Liverpool’s Qudditich club, who train in Wavertree and can vouch for the accepting nature of the sport. Chloe Hemingway, the team’s coach, started playing the game in her first year of university. Initially, she wasn’t “planning on continuing, but found the community so friendly and welcoming” that she decided to stick around.
Now, six years later, the 25-year-old, from South Liverpool, told the ECHO : “I came from a background of hockey and netball and was really fascinated by the tactics and game mechanics that all interlinked from other sports, which made it more interesting than any sport I’d played before; there are effectively three different games happening on the same pitch at the same time. I also really enjoyed that it was mixed gender and that people of all genders, fitness levels and body types could find a way to excel and have key roles in the team. There are so many different roles, skills, tactics and styles of play, that everyone can find their niche in a way that’s more difficult in mainstream sports.”
