The Lighter Side

Sky HD

With the FIFA World Cup this year and the Rugby World Cup next year plus plenty of other matches to keep us interested, the club has decided to upgrade to Sky HD (High Definition). The installation should be finished this week.

 

Wrong Shaped Ball World Cup

For those of you who are interested in following England's progress in this year's FIFA World Cup, the opening game against USA is on Saturday 12th June 2010. KO 7.30 pm. The game will be shown in HD at the club and all are welcome.
Please keep an eye on the web site for club opening hours throughout the World Cup, we will try and keep the club free for the final on Sunday 11th July for the 7.30pm final.

SUMMER RUGBY ON SKY

Whilst the FIFA World Cup is taking centre stage in June and July on the terrestrial TV channels, there is a huge amount of rugby being played down under, with most of the games on Sky, some of them in HD. The schedule is viewable by clicking the link below.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12946,00.html

Please check the club web site regarding opening hours to watch these games.

Pitch Care

If you have been past the club lately you may have seen a good deal of sand heaped up around the pitches. To scotch rumours that we are filming a remake of "Ice Cold in Brian" or "Thomas of Arabia", we can inform you that major pitch work is being carried out again during the summer months, to continue the improvement of our facilities.
Sand Banding has been carried out on all three pitches, which is a process where slits are made in the pitch and back filled with sand to help drainage. The pitches have now been seeded and fertiliser applied and therefore will be out of bounds until just before the start of the new season.

SPREADING THE WORD

Very soon the Percy Park lion will be worn proudly by the children in Pala High School in the south of Kenya. Club member Sophie Dale has for the last four years has been involved, through Whitley Bay High School, with the charity Team Kenya raising funds for the High School in Ndhiwa (1 hour outside Nairobi). Last year saw a group of students go out to Kenya to help in the building of a nursery attached to the school and this year Sophie has been given the chance to go out and contribute to the project. Rugby has been introduced to the school by one of the teachers from Whitley Bay and Percy Park has generously donated a set of old strips along with bibs, balls, cones and tag belts to help develop their rugby skills further.
Its not all work though when Sophie is out there, and there is a safari trip to the Masai Mara game reserve with an overnight stay in the lodges in the middle of the game park.- surely a chance of a life time. The trip hasn't been free and Sophie has had to raise the £1000 herself through various fund raising activities. The raffling of an Ireland top on the players dinner night at Park saw the grand total of £140 raised. Thanks to all those who chipped in also massive thanks to Margaret and Brian Scorer who managed to raise an additional £60 for the fund.

NEW FENCE

As part of the club's ongoing programme of maintenance projects, it has been decided that the fence around the perimeter of the 1st XV pitch has had its day. We thought long and hard about whether to build a new wooden fence or go for a low maintenance alternative. We have decided to go with a Duralock PVC-u fence, similar to that at Druid Park, Tynedale and Westoe. The installation wont be cheap, but you get what you pay for and the fence wont require painting.
We hope to help fund the fence and installation by offering advertising boards to companies which will be displayed around the 1st XV pitch. The boards will be about 4 metre x .60 metre and normally we would charge annual rental of £200 plus vat. The manufacture of the board will be between £100 and £150, but as a special promotion we are offering a 3 year deal which includes production of the board for £500 plus vat. We are limiting this to the first 25 boards and so far 15 companies have signed up so we are well on the way.
If you own or are part of a company which you think might be interested please let us know, by contacting mick@percyparkrfc.co.uk or thomas@percyparkrfc.co.uk

TYNEMOUTH BEER FESTIVAL

Once again Percy Park and Tynemouth Cricket Club have joined forces in association with Jennings Brewery for the Annual Tynemouth Beer Festival. This is the 4th year the festival has taken place and each year it just gets better and better, with visitors from all over the country. This year there will be over 70 different beers and ciders on offer and the event will take place on Thursday 16th, Friday 17th and Saturday 18th September 2010.
Further details can be found by visiting the web site on www.tynemouthbeerfestival.co.uk
For the event to be a continued success we require as many sponsors as possible and at £100 to sponsor a barrel it is great value for money. Sponsorship is available for businesses and individuals and more details can be found by clicking the attached link.
http://www.tynemouthbeerfestival.co.uk/Sponsors.htm

BBQ

In addition to the charcoal burning barbecues at the club, we now have a gas barbecue for use by club members. The barbecue takes less setting up than the conventional charcoal type and is available for a small returnable deposit and £20 for use of the calor gas. Contact Stu Robertson stu@percyparkrfc.co.uk

Lets hope we have a better summer than last year, when we can make full use of the equipment.

News

Marauders League and Cup Double

What a season for the Marauders in 2009/10. Not only did they win Northumberland County League 3c, but they also won the No5 County Challenge Cup, defeating favourites Tynedale Veterans in a nail biting final.

Captain Paul Hardcastle recruited well for his side bringing several new players to the club, and some old ones who hadn't put on a Park jersey since they were Colts. The season started off well with some huge wins against Novos, North Shields and the largest against Rockcliff Rangers. The only league defeat suffered all season was at the hands of Seghill, who brought all of their senior squad on the day.

The last league game of the season was at home to Blyth III in a double header, and the winners would be league champions. In the event the Marauders were far too strong for Blyth, scoring inside the first minute, and were 47 - 5 up at half time!

Next season the Marauders will be promoted to NCL 3b, and will compete in the No4 Challenge Cup

PLAYERS DINNER

This season the Player’s Dinner was attended by almost 130, players, officials and guests, which was a record attendance in recent years, so much so that Brian had to go begging to Rockcliff to borrow additional tables to fit everyone in. The "hog roast" format proved to be as popular as last year with Phil (The Crazy Carver) Martin in charge of carving, and Brian ensuring no one got more than their fair share of crackling!
Chairman of Rugby Thomas Turnbull opened proceedings and thanked Brian, Margaret and staff for all of their hard work through out the season, and captains, Sean Williamson (Academy), Paul Hardcastle (Marauders), Gary Davey (Pumas), Andrew Clyde (Lions) and Club Captain Brett Sylph all gave speeches summarising their season.
Head Coach James Ponton also spoke as did President Albi Duhrin who presented the following trophies:

1st XV Player's Player of the Season
John Scott

Lions Player of the Season
Damien Coia (frenchie)

Pumas Player of the Season
Stephen Ferris (fez)

Marauders Player's Player of the Season
Phil Allan

Academy Player of the Season
Andrew Knox

The Clubman of the Year was presented to Phil Dent in recognition of the enormous amount of work he does in collecting the mini and junior subs each year.
Paul Hardcastle was presented with the President's Award for his captaincy of the Marauders who won the league and cup double.
1st XV ties were presented to Anthony Dunn and Chris Reekie. Chris aka "Tank" played in every one of the 1st XV's 30 matches this season.

PRE-SEASON TRAINING

Some of you might now be enjoying a well earned break from rugby related activities, but spare a thought for the players, well the ones that train anyway. Gone are the days when the 1st XV had May and June off and pile on those unwanted pounds. Today's players are athletes and to prove a point weight training and conditioning started on Monday 17th May with 25 senior players and 10 of the academy, being put through agony by Head Coach James Ponton. Weight training will take place every Monday and Wednesday.
Pre season training proper begins on Monday 5th July 2010.

Percy Park End of Season “Mini's” Mini Tour

277 boys, girls and parents from the Percy Park Mini Rugby section had their end of season “tour” at the Newcastle Falcons game against Wasps. The Falcons Community Rugby team offer an incentivised ticket scheme and the Park contingent was the largest single group they’ve ever had with players from Under 6 through to Under 12 being involved.

The day kicked off with a training session for each age group by Falcons Community Coaches at Druids Park that was followed by lunch before the players and parents headed to Kingston Park for the match. All age groups were involved at the ground: the Under 9 and Under 10 teams formed the guard of honour as the players ran out for the first half and at half time the Under 7 and Under 8’s paraded around the pitch as the Under 11’s received a signed ball and the Under 12’s a signed Falcons shirt.

The day was the second half of the season finale as the previous weekend had been the club’s end of season awards day where Mini Rugby players from each age group were awarded with medals and trophies by Falcons players Jimmy Gopperth and Tane Tu’ipolotu. Players were awarded trophies for Most Improved Player, Coaches Award and Player of the Season and the Mini Player of the Year was awarded to Dominic Foster.