Frank Morton Sports Day 2026

Cambridge pip Birmingham to claim first Frank Morton title

THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE secured its first Frank Morton victory, narrowly defeating reigning champions Birmingham in the annual chemical engineering students’ multi-sports event.

Hosting for the second successive year, organisers at the University of Nottingham adapted the scoring system so points were more evenly weighted between small and large universities. Returning after a four-year absence, Cambridge finished on 291 points, just one ahead of Birmingham, winners of 18 titles since 1985.

The event saw 19 universities from the UK and Ireland compete in football, touch rugby, netball, badminton, volleyball, chess, laser tag, squash, table tennis, dodgeball, basketball, rounders and the newly added tug of war. Cambridge’s overall victory was largely down to their dominance in badminton, chess and table tennis. Birmingham, meanwhile, topped the touch rugby and dodgeball standings.

One of the noisiest sports was tug of war, with teams choosing heave-ho methods and other strategies involving screams and shouts that echoed through the sports hall.

Nottingham student and Frank Morton 2026 chair Laoise Barclay, was proud of how well-organised the student-led day was. “I was a bit worried about how everything was going to run, like sports getting delayed, but everyone just went on their own and ran each sport really well. So, I think that’s probably my highlight, that it’s just gone smoothly,” she said.

Bidding to host the 2027 Frank Morton opens soon, but Barclay said Nottingham is reluctant to host for a third year due to many students, particularly second-years, failing to buy tickets after attending in 2025. “We didn’t have as many ticket sales because they all went last year so they didn’t see the point in coming this year. So, for my students, I’d like it somewhere else.”

Barclay offered some parting wisdom for whoever takes over the reins next year: “Have a committee that’s enthusiastic, work well together and you should all be fine.”

Almost as important as the sports at Frank Morton are the team T-shirts, each designed with varying degrees of crudeness, from the relatively prim Gaelic football jerseys sported by Munster University to Manchester’s more uncouth uniform.

Frank Morton was a chemical engineering professor who served as IChemE president in 1963-64. The annual sports day began in 1961 as a competition between chemical engineering students at the universities of Birmingham and Manchester where Morton spent most of his academic career. After his death in 1999, IChemE launched a medal in Morton’s memory to recognise excellence in chemical engineering education.