A student’s guide to on-campus sports facilities

Warwick’s on campus sports facilities are undoubtedly some of the university’s greatest landmarks. See, despite what your friends from college might remark about its remote location in the West Midlands countryside, that leaves plenty of room for numerous top-of-the-range facilities scattered across the campus you’ll call home. Whether you’re interested in football, athletics, swimming, or any other of the vast quantity of sports Warwick has to offer, this guide will help you discover a little more about each space and help you impress your flat crush about how you go to the gym (The Boar does not encourage flatcest, do so at your own risk).

Sports and Wellness Hub

There’s no better place to start than the home of Warwick sport, the Sports and Wellness Hub. Located a 10-minute walk from central campus, this monumental palace is hard to miss as it dominates the western horizon. It boasts a huge number of indoor and outdoor facilities that are accessible with the purchase of the Hub’s various memberships.

As you enter the Sports Hub, you will find yourself looking onto the huge Climbing Centre. It features a 15m tall top rope and two tall speed climbing walls, a lead climbing wall, as well as a bouldering wall with a multitude of regularly changing routes of mixed difficulty. Along the left side of the Hub’s ground floor are six glass-backed squash courts, often packed by university and regional tournaments, and you’ll soon become accustomed to the loud cheers from the stands next to them.

Completing the ground floor’s facilities is the aquatic area, which features a 25m swimming pool, a sauna, and a steam room. The pool is available for casual and lane swimming, as well as lessons for all levels, aquatic fitness classes, and some of the University’s aquatic sports clubs’ weekly training sessions. The sauna and the steam rooms, meanwhile, are particularly relaxing after working out or even just a long day of lectures.

On the top floor, you’ll find the cycle studio, the rowing studio (often packed with half-naked students who are very fond of rowing), plus four studios used for an assortment of fitness classes from yoga to boxing, and the Hub’s magnum opus, the gym. The gym contains over 200 fitness stations for cardio, resistance, and functional training, alongside a dedicated strength training area with plenty of cable machines, benches, and squat racks. The gym is much busier in the afternoon and evening, so going in the morning will provide a quieter experience, even after a long night out.

Going down to the basement of the Sports Hub will lead you to the arena and hall. These massive indoor spaces are used for a host of indoor sports, as reflected by the amount of distinctly coloured lines painted on the wooden floors. The size of these spaces, helped by the useful curtain dividers, mean that people can play several sports all at the same time.

As you exit through the back of the basement, you arrive at the Hub’s outdoor facilities, the netball courts, and five 4G caged football pitches. These pitches are home to some of the greatest five-a-side football Warwick, and maybe even the world, has ever seen. You can book to play in the intramural leagues or with your friends at any time of the day, with floodlights that turn on at night, which genuinely make it feel like you’re playing in the Champions League.

On top of this, the Caffé Nero is perfect for grabbing a sweet treat after a workout, especially before embarking on the seemingly endless path towards central campus and your accommodation.

Cryfield Sports Pavillion

Next to Cryfield Village, you’ll find the aptly named Cryfield Sports Pavilion, only a 10-minute walk south from central campus. The Pavilion itself is a nice little venue that features an open social space for society events, in addition to particularly useful changing facilities and showers to freshen up after matches. Behind the Pavilion, there is a range of grass pitches and open green spaces where football, lacrosse, and cricket clubs play their home fixtures. Despite the less than perfect seating areas for spectators, watching and playing on pitches surrounded by green fields and dense forests does have a certain charm to it.

Westwood Games Hall

Westwood Games Hall is located a 15-minute walk from the centre of campus, right on the northern edge of the university, next to the Westwood accommodation. If you’re staying there, the Games Hall and its facilities are pretty much in your back garden. For the rest of you, even though the walk itself feels like forever, it’s not worth missing out on all there is to do when you eventually arrive.

Behind the Hall, you’ll find the athletics track, which is full-size with eight lanes of 400m, available for use individually or as part of a group. There is another 4G football pitch, a sand-based pitch, and a water-based hockey pitch, which includes a spectator area for when Varsity comes around.

Finally, next to the hall, there is the Tennis Centre that includes four indoor hard courts with a spectator balcony, as well as four outdoor clay courts, all of which are available to book and play in the hopes of pursuing a dream of becoming Warwick’s own Serena Williams.

So, no matter what sport, fitness activity, or exercise you get the most enjoyment out of, there’ll be something right for you on campus.