In preparation for our furthest away league game, car travel talk started on Monday, with a controversial change of services all set off at 7am. With good habits hard to break the GOSFORTH car, demanding a higher end service station stopped early. The rest of us made our way to agree meeting point and enjoyed the various food outlets, including a burger for Miss Mulholland?. Katie rocked up it what can only be describe as the completely wrong colours and looked like the bride in a hen party rather than a member of NHC. Please can we donate some clothing to Katie to help her fit in more!

We all arrived in high spirts, the sun was shining and the pitch looked like it would meet Smithy’s approval. It’s a good job we were a little thin on the ground as the changing rooms were slender, but we appreciated ‘Fi’s corner’, this allowed her to pop in and out with words of wisdom and motivation.

Warm up done, with a couple of players keen to practice the new skill from Wednesday! It was a nervous start with Lindum attacking from the whistle with the opposition having far too much play in our defending 25. Socks pulled up and we began to calmly play the ball out of defence and finding Koren and Katie who were able to create some good attacking play. Lou and Hannah with their constant directions to keep us right, we upped our game and on sprung ‘new’ Amy causing real problems on the right hand side. Helen, concentrating so hard to leave the line, literally did leave the line as the a player ran down the line and crossed a ball to an unmarked player who was able to slot the ball past Amy. The ball may have gone out, but as everyone should known, you play to the whistle.

Laura and Megan were causing lots of trouble up front, and it wasn’t long till Newcastle equalised, that’s what happens when you have 5 players in zone 5!

Second half was just beautiful, lots of great passing, working in twos, Ariel balls, great pick ups, squeezing, transfers and most importantly a group of players playing for each other. Upgrade awarded and guess what a penalty corner that went exactly to plan, boom 2-1.

The game finished 2-1, but let’s not forget the mini dramas along the way; Megan flopping over the keeper (twice!!!), Lisa causally clearing off the line.....again! New Amy showing how she could score if the umpires hadn’t spoilt her fun. Hannah on the floor again, Fi dazzling us with her amazing skills, Rach letting no one get passed her on the left. As for captain Amy, when the umpire asked if she was ok during the short corners that were awarded in the last minutes, it was a simple “yes”, she was confident that she’d captained the team to their 1st win of the season.

The oldies stretched in the sunshine whilst the youngsters, were keen to get changed and enjoy a well deserved drink, luckily Helen arrived to the changing rooms in time to rescue Koren from the giant spider!
Today was a long day, but a good one, we played well as a team, celebrated with a few drinks and cups of tea. We missed those not able to play for various reasons and we’ll all look forward to doing it all over again next week.

'There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be diminished by a nice cup of tea' - Bernard Paul Heroux