Scottish clubs Tryst 77 and EK82 scored a double win in Sunday’s Anglo-Scottish under-14s handball tournament in Newcastle.
Hosted by Newcastle Vikings Handball Club at the Benfield Sports Centre, the juniors tournament welcomed boys and girls teams from Manchester’s Trafford Handball Club, Cumbernauld-based Tryst 77 and East Kilbride’s EK82. Having unexpectedly won December’s first England Handball Association under-14 tournament of the season down in Telford, the home side went into the afternoon’s matches in positive mood while fielding two teams, ‘Newcastle’ in green and ‘Vikings’ in black, to give many players their first opportunity to play some competitive handball against other clubs.
Newcastle narrowly lost the opening boys match 6-7 to a Tryst/EK select team, while the Trafford-Vikings game ended in an evenly-matched 7-7 draw. Both sides then got into winning ways with Newcastle scoring a 7-4 win over Trafford and Vikings beating Tryst/EK 9-5. With Tryst/EK then beating Trafford 10-8, the competition went down to a tense final match of the day between the two home teams, with Vikings in with a chance of winning overall if they could take the victory or even a draw would see them pip Tryst/EK on head-to-head results. But it was Newcastle who snatched a late 7-6 win over their clubmates that put them level on points with Tryst/EK instead, but with the Scots taking the honours by virtue of having won the opening head-to-head contest, while Vikings ended up finishing in third place ahead of Trafford.
Meanwhile, EK82 sealed the three-way girls competition with two big wins in their games, beating Trafford 13-8 and Tryst 12-3. Trafford then defeated Tryst 10-5 in the other match to take second spot.
The Newcastle Vikings teams were represented by Andrew, Brendan, Charlie, Elsa, Emmanuel, George, Jamie, Joel, Joseph, Leon, Nelson, Oli, Raphael, Rohan, Thomas, Zac and Zavi. Elsa also really enjoyed the opportunity to guest for the different girls teams and get her first taste of all-girls handball matches.
Head Coach Marlen was very impressed with the young handballers, saying “Our junior players worked really hard in their teams, performing great shots, solid defending and some amazing goalkeeper saves. Their team spirit and fair play was exceptional. It was fantastic to be able to host a tournament for clubs across England and Scotland, and seeing so many happy girls and boys playing handball together. A big thank you to all players, volunteers, supporters and clubs travelling to Newcastle.”
Newcastle Vikings under-14’s next England Handball Association tournament day is set for 13 February down in Northampton.
