HNC SPORTS PERSONALITIES OF THE YEAR AWARDS CELEBRATES 25 YEARS OF SPORTING SUCCESS

19.05.2026

HNC’s has recently celebrated the successes of the Sports Academy teams in the annual Sports Personalities of the Year (SPOTY) awards – recognising the sporting excellence that has taken place over the past academic year.

This year the Sports Academy Programme celebrates 25 years of sporting excellence, meaning the HNC has now been developing academy team players across Basketball, Cricket, Football and Netball – and providing a framework for students at HNC to succeed both in their studies and their chosen sports – for a quarter of a century!

Our annual SPOTY awards has recently brought together our athletes from across the Academy teams to celebrate their successes over the past academic year and recognise those players who had particularly shone, with awards for Player of the Year and Players Player of the Year being awarded for each team. It was also an opportunity to recognise one of the College’s individual athletes, Indigo Zaffino, a British Fencer who recently claimed silver in the team event at the EFC U23 Foil competition in Prague. The Paul Futcher Memorial Award for Outstanding Sportsmanship went to Jack Meeres, a key member of the Men’s Football Academy team and a player who has consistently shown discipline, dedication and commitment, both on the field and in the classroom. A full list of award winners can be found below.

Jamie Marsden, Head of Faculty Sport and Health and Sports Academies shares more “Our annual SPOTY awards is a wonderful event that allows us to celebrate our successes, recognise the talent of our academy players and our coaches, and end the year with a commitment to our sports and our teams for the next season. This year has been particularly challenging, with poor weather and a change in league structures meaning that many of the planned fixtures were cancelled. Despite this disappointment, our team players and our coaches remained enthusiastic, committed and motivated, meaning that when the teams did finally get their time to shine, they played to their very best. As always, I am incredibly proud of all of our players across all disciplines, as they continue to become their best selves both on and off the pitch. Trials for our incoming Year 12 academy players have now taken place, and I am excited by the level of talent coming through. We can’t wait for another incredible year of sport here at HNC!”

You can view a gallery of images from the awards ceremony below.