Bournemouth University has announced that their sports tracksuits will not be delivered this year, due to problems with their suppliers.
The news leaves many of the University’s athletes with no alternative but to compete without them.
It comes as a blow to Bournemouth who are striving to be one of the top 25 sports Universities in the UK, by June this year.
The University has had a meteoric rise up the sports rankings since 2003, gaining almost 100 places to their current position of 36th.
As a result of this, looking professional when competing has become an all-important ingredient of success.
But this aspect has been difficult to fulfil with suppliers Surridge continuously failing to meet growing demand.
Jason Atkins, Head of Performance Sports, at Bournemouth accepted that the "suppliers have let us and our athletes down".
The problem has been ongoing for several years.
Lucy Fogarty, a first team hockey player, has experienced the delays and also the implications upon the team.
"Half the girls missed the order deadline by a few days and because of that, half of us have a tracksuit and the others don’t".
But even then, the 18 year-old added that an error was made with their order.
"We didn’t get the right shade that we wanted, so our socks don’t match our tops and we are still waiting for the replacements".
The lack of delivery has had ripple effect on the other faculties in the University.
Sports Psychology and Coaching Sciences student James Eccles was promised a free tracksuit with his course.
But with recent developments coming to a head, he feels pessimistic about his chances of this happening now.
"I haven’t been told anything about it since enrolling. We were told it would be a small compensation for the tuition fees, but it looks like that isn’t going to go through".
Mark: 70
