Equipment - Broomstick

Equipment

Quidditch pitch
Well, you can’t have a game of Quidditch without a place to play it! Quidditch is played on an oval, grassy pitch with a set of three Quidditch hoops at each end. As the game is airborne, the surrounding stands (which house the fans) are raised so that spectators can get an unobstructed view of their favourite players executing a perfect Wronski Feint or Wollongong Shimmy.

Goalposts
The goalposts at the end of the Quidditch pitch are a set of three individual hoops that rise up about fifty feet in the air (this really isn’t a sport for those afraid of heights). Harry once thought that they reminded him of ‘the little plastic sticks Muggle children blew bubbles through’… except the ones at Hogwarts were gold.

Broomstick
As a sport that takes place completely in the sky, there needs to be a way for players to remain firmly in the clouds. Luckily, every Quidditch player can achieve this by using a broomstick. Unlike their Muggle counterparts, which are more suited to sweeping, the wizarding version flies. There’s not just one type of broom a budding Quidditch player could buy from a shop like Quality Quidditch Supplies. No, no, there are a huge assortment from the humble Cleansweep Five to the top-of-the-range Firebolt.

Quaffle
This is the ball used by the team’s Chasers to score points. Round, red and similar in size to a football, each time it is thrown through the opposing team’s goalpost, it earns 10 points… That might sound like rather a lot but it’s nothing compared to what the teeny tiny Snitch will get you.

Golden Snitch
Speaking of which, the Snitch is a tiny golden ball, the size of a walnut, with fluttering silver wings – how cute! Don’t be fooled by its diminutive size, according to Gryffindor Quidditch captain, Oliver Wood, it’s the most important ball on the pitch. Tiny and hard to see, once caught by a team’s Seeker the Quidditch match will end, and that team will be awarded 150 points – often (but not always) securing their victory.

Interestingly, when a Snitch is created, the makers have to wear gloves because they are designed to remember the first person who touches them – which certainly comes in handy when there are quarrels about which team caught it!

Bludger
Now this is a ball that causes many Quidditch players a headache… and we mean that literally. Jet-black, slightly smaller than the Quaffle and with the ability to move around on its own, two Bludgers will zoom around the pitch during a game with the sole aim of knocking the players off their brooms. And that is why they literally cause headaches.