Saturday and Sunday saw the final tournament of the season for Inaugural Inter Regional Junior League.

Despite being let down by several of their players and officials due to various reasons, the North east team was made up of 2 of their original squad in Mikey Ableson and Graeme Stewart.

Peter Lonsdale then called on the ever dependable Andy McCullagh (boro) and Ryan Chambers from Spectrum, and arranged for Gareth Cook (GK) and Graeme Henderson to join after their Intermediates tournament in Maidstone.

Despite all of the absentees, the team competed well for each other and fought against a full strength Herne Bay side that played their strongest team for 90% of the game. The North East team eventually lost 5-1 but the game could have been much closer. Ron Barker of Herne said “NE seems to have plenty of balance and strength to the squad not to mention the hair do’s. The whole South East (Herne Bay) Team played well on Sunday and they had to. I thought North East had completely worn us out for the EC game (our fifth game of the tournament) but we scraped though”

Team Manager Stewart Henderson said “The lads did the region proud. Everyone played for each other and the shirt and they all came back with a smile on their faces. It was a pleasure to coach them”

With a very young squad competing this year, and the oldest player at the weekend was 17, the North East have a terrific chance of wrestling the Junior title away from the Southern teams next season.