What began as a fictional sport for witches and wizards that was played high above the heads of unsuspecting muggles, quickly became a cult phenomenon with Quidditch teams popping up in schools across the country.

The AHS Quidditch Club was formed four years ago by a group of enthusiastic players but unfortunately, all but one of the players graduated in May. Senior Melissa Snow and club sponsor Erica Bode are on the lookout for students interested in playing the fast-paced and fun sport.

”It’s basically flag football, dodgeball and a little bit of soccer all rolled into one,” Snow said.

As in the Harry Potter series, Quidditch is an incredibly inclusionary sport so the club is open to both boys and girls.

“Anyone can join,” Bode said. “Quidditch rules are based on equality so you have to have a mixture of girls and boys in each team. You cannot have a one-gendered team.”

In order to form an actual Quidditch Team, the ideal is for the club to have about 14 members.

“We’ve played with as few as eight before,” Bode said, “but [then] you don’t have somebody in every position.”

When it comes to the club’s funding, just as in the game, every club member plays a part. If not everybody contributes, the club will not be as successful as it aspires to be.

“We mainly fund amongst ourselves,” Snow said. “It’s a lot of self-determination and obtaining money from fundraisers.”

The team has competed against Martin for the past three years but with this year’s small numbers, there may be collaboration between schools.

“It depends on whether or not anyone wants to pick up and join in things,” Bode said. “Last year, at the end of the year, there were three [kids] who came all the time so I sent them Martin’s way because they got tired of playing by themselves.”

In addition to looking for new members, the club is also looking for a place to hold practices and games.

“We haven’t started practices yet,” Snow said. “They used to take place on the practice field but they tore that down [for the MAC] so we may end up having our practices at Martin.”

With so much up in the air this year, the club has not advertised much but they are looking for students to add to the roster. Students who are interested in playing Quidditch should stop by C210 to sign up and get more information.