Tarannau Aberystwyth
Tarannau Aberystwyth are one of BUAFL’s more colourful and well-organized teams.
Aberystwyth was one of the best teams in the league through the mid to late 1990’s, culminating with a Southern Conference championship and College Bowl appearance in 1997.
Since the 1997-8 season, however, Aberystwyth have suffered, going through 7 straight non-winning seasons (compiling a 13-42-1 record during that period) before compiling a 4-3-1 record in 2005-06. Tarannau continued with another solid season by going 4-4 during the 2006-07 season and, following two regular season losses, defeated the Staffordshire Stallions 32-0 to win the Southern Plate.
Aberystwyth is one of four teams in the BUAFL that represent universities in Wales.
Two previous Head Coaches have gone on to become professional Coaches in the USA. Richard Worsell is currently the Passing Game Coordinator at Millikin University and Stephen Healey is the Offensive Line Coach at Bridgewater College.
The University was founded in 1872 as University College Wales. The first Principal was Thomas Charles Edwards and initially there were just 26 students.
In 1894 the college joined the University of Wales as a founder member (prior to this students had been submitted for examinations of the University of London).
One of the newest departments in the University is the Department of Sports and Exercise Science, which was established in 2000. Within the next few years the university has plans to establish a department of Psychology, which will be based upon the Centre for Applied Psychology currently found within the Department of International Politics. Indeed many joint honours Psychology degrees were launched in September 2007.
The University’s coat of arms was awarded in the 1880s. The shield features two red dragons, the red dragon being a common symbol of Wales, and an open book, symbolising learning. The crest is an eagle or phoenix above a flaming tower: it possibly symbolises the rebirth of the College after the fire of 1885.
The motto is "Nid Byd, Byd Heb Wybodaeth": "A World Without Knowledge, is No World At All".
On 1 September 2007 the University of Wales ceased to be a federal university and Aberystwyth became an independent university in its own right once again. However, it will continue to award University of Wales degrees for the foreseeable future.
The National Student Survey named Aberystwyth fifth in the UK in 2006 and tenth in 2007, for overall student satisfaction. Indeed, The Times Good University Guide 2008 ranked Aberystwyth joint first in the UK for student satisfaction. It also ranked Aberystwyth 39th in the Academic league tables out of 113 institutions. Aberystwyth was also short-listed for a best student experience award by the Times.
