Quidditch: The Harry Potter-inspired game will see two London teams play in the British Cup this weekend

They may not be able to fly across the pitch on a broomstick like Harry Potter, but Quidditch players take the sport seriously. So seriously that two London-based teams have qualified for this year’s British Quidditch Cup.

The London Unspeakables and The Werewolves of London will be competing against 30 other teams from across the UK this weekend at the Rugeley Leisure Centre in Staffordshire.

Down on the pitch, at Hampstead Heath Park, where both teams played each other ahead of the tournament, it becomes clear that Quidditch is not a fictional game. It’s a very real sport with very complex rules.

A Quidditch team consists of seven players: three chasers, two beaters, one keeper and one seeker.

The teams throw bludgers, pass quaffles and chase the snitch whilst trying to avoid tackles throughout every single game.

“People use to say that it is something like rugby mixed with handball and dodgeball”, said Alex Harrison, from The London Werewolves, who joined the team 18 months ago.

Quidditch was first played by ‘muggles’ in the United States in 2007, and since then it has become an increasingly popular sport.

Today there are more than 300 teams in the US and the game is played in more than 20 countries across the world.

“Four years ago there were two teams in the UK, now there are almost 40. And we are getting at least ten more every year, so I think it’s quite big.”

Sasha Burgoyne has been playing for a year and says she has never been a huge Harry Potter fan. The fact that Quidditch is an inclusive sport is one of the main reasons why she joined her team the Werewolves.

She said: “For me the mixed gender aspect is really important, because I like being able to be in equal footing to men and people not to see me as weaker just because I am a woman."

Each team needs to have the same number of male and female players on the pitch. The sport also recognises non-binary participants, those who do not identify with a gender other than male and female.

You might not need to have read any of the Harry Potter books or watched the films to play Quidditch, but determination is a key requirement on the pitch.