Report by Stewart Henderson (North East Team Manager)

Further to the recent Regional Junior Tournament I would like to thank all the North East Players who represented our Region.

After a rather eventful journey down we arrived at the Arcadia with our depleted squad of:-

• Danny Palmer Goal Keeper
• Graeme Stewart
• Mikey Ableson
• Ian Smith (Outplayer)
• Graeme Henderson
• Ryan Chamber

The first game we had to play was against Eastern Counties who we all thought would be the Tournament favourites, we did however have a trump card to play as we had enlisted the help of England coach Kos Galtos who knew all of our players very well from previous England squads.

The two games we played on Saturday Night (the second between us and the North West) became a bit of a blur with us gaining a hard fought draw with the Eastern Counties (Only points dropped by them all tournament ), and been narrowly beaten by the North West with our Squad been further depleted by Ian Smith having to return home for a prior engagement and Graeme Stewart receiving a blue card
.
The game against the North West was a local derby with Northern Pride at stake, it was described by one spectator as one of the hardest and fairly contested Junior matches he had seen.

On Sunday the team was joined by Jermaine Clark from Retford and Kier McCloud from Sheffield. We did however suffer our only real disappointment of the weekend and were narrowly beaten by South East Counties in the first game of the day in a game that we desperately wanted to win.

After waking up we then went on to convincingly beat the South and we had great satisfaction in taking apart the other South East Team in our final Match.

The league finished like this :-
1. Eastern Counties
2. North West
3. South East
4. North East
5. South East
6. South.

I would particularly like to thank the following:-
• All Squad members who made the effort to attend
• Ian Smithy who travelled to Manchester on Saturday to play as an outplayer for the only game he could contest – that’s dedication to the Region
• Kier and our new North Eastern PASSING – NON SLAP SHOTTING Player Jermaine both who made the effort to attend on Sunday.
• Steve Taylor and Cliff Willard for Refing a lot more games than was planned for them

I would also like to thank on the Teams behalf our stand in coach Kos Galtos who stepped in at a moments notice to help the lads-they really appreciated it as you turned our bit of fun into a serious effort for success.

Thanks again lads you did the Region Proud.

Stewart
Chauffer-Water Boy