Newcastle Vikings is the first developmental handball club in Tyne & Wear and North East England.
The club was founded in autumn 2012 by a diverse group of people with a common objective to practice handball whilst contributing to the development of the community through sport. Marlen is the head coach and the driving force behind the club. Coming from Norway with years of experience playing and teaching handball, she is passionate about developing young people and adults in the art of playing handball. Marlen joined forces with a group of other sports enthusiasts and founded the club as part of the immediate legacy of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The Vikings celebrated our 10 th anniversary in autumn 2022. Our mission is to be More than a Handball Club, growing and developing handball in the North East of England, with a long-term goal to have sustainable handball teams in different age groups and genders to take part in leagues and tournaments.
Read our Go Vikings! History of Handball in Newcastle and North East England, which includes a full report and statistical record of the club’s achievements in each season.
History-of-Handball-in-Newcastle-and-NE-England-2024-2-page-1The club’s senior teams played their debut 2013/14 season in the Scottish Handball leagues, before joining the English Handball North regional development leagues for the following 2014/15 season, which culminated with our Vikings ladies reaching the final of the second-tier England Handball League Cup competition and picking up the silver medals.
Our women’s team won the club’s first major silverware in becoming England Handball North Regional League champions for 2017/18, before picking up the third place trophy in the Plate competition at the British Beach Handball Championships that summer. Our men’s team then emulated the ladies’ title-winning achievement the following season to become England Handball North Regional League champions for 2018/19, and they remained reigning champions when the coronavirus pandemic brought a premature end to the next season with the Vikings men topping the table at the point that the English leagues were voided.
Our Vikings women have also been victorious in winning the club’s own annual Tyneside Handball Tournament against teams from England and Scotland on four occasions in 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2022, as well as coming runners-up at the pre-season Edinburgh Handball Tournament in 2014 and winning the Craig Walter Cup at East Kilbride’s pre-season Tom Cooper Tournament in 2018. After rejoining the Scottish leagues in 2022/23, our women finished runners-up and qualified for the prestigious end-of-season British Handball Super Cup Finals. Our men’s team’s best tournament showing came in finishing runners-up at the Tyneside Handball Tournament in 2018. The Vikings men and women also won the inaugural informal combined North East Handball League in 2015/16, before coming runners-up in each of the next two seasons.
Having initially started up a junior mixed team in 2013/14 and winning several friendly matches against local schools, the club’s first venture into the English junior leagues came with a Tyne & Wear representative girls team playing in the England Handball Under-16 North League in 2017/18. With a promising strong growth in the numbers of younger club members in recent seasons, the Vikings’ junior boys/mixed team made an impressive winning debut to playing in their first England Handball Under-14 North regional tournament rounds in 2021/22. Newcastle Vikings has helped to organise and run the Tyne & Wear and North East regional rounds of the England Handball Association’s national schools games competitions since being instrumental in establishing the first Tyne & Wear schools handball festival in 2016/17. The club also regularly gets involved in supporting various community sports and fundraising initiatives.
Read our Vikings Vault Scrapbook Archive of newspaper cuttings and other articles about
Newcastle Vikings and handball in North East England: