Magic Weekend was another storming success with 560 tickets sold (see some other stats here) by the club as well as hundreds of orange t-shirts and visors to ensure the whole rugby league family knew we were there!

80 Rockets enjoyed some kind of on the field activity over the three days. The U12s were guard of honour at Magic Friday in front of a fantastic 3,033 people as Newcastle Thunder took on York.

Then on Saturday our U10s and U8s were mascots for the Widnes match, our adopted Super League club that saw many a Rockets wearing the limited edition charity shirt for that match.

Finally on Sunday we were flagbearers and even some Rocket Mams and Dads got in on the action. I think they loved it more than the juniors!

One such flagbearer you may have seen though is U14 Ollie. Waiting pitchside, he started dancing like nobody was watching – in front of 30,000 people! The video quickly went viral and has so far reached 53,000 views!

There were plenty of other sub-plots to Magic that made it another very successful event. We met Lizzie Jones and helped the Danny Jones Defibrillator Fund being just one of them. To hear and see more about it, check out our photo album or find an article I wrote in this month’s Forty-20 magazine. Just look for the orange!

Back to Magic Friday for a moment, through my company, Brewin Dolphin, as match sponsors we gave away 1,000 free tickets to local charities for Magic Friday and I was pleased to hear how much everyone who went enjoyed it. The atmosphere was very good and welcoming and it opened the eyes to a lot of people just how entertaining rugby league is.

There were a lot of really nice stories about how the tickets were used. Some were used as prizes, for example, to school children for carrying out anti-racism projects. Some were used for staff and volunteers to say thank you and some went to disadvantaged children who had never gone to a sporting event of any description before. That’s what rugby league is all about, giving opportunities to people and a big thank you must go to Newcastle Thunder for helping make it happen.

Anyway, back at the main club, our first block of Rocket Tots finished to much applause to the extent that when it returns this month, it will be twice the size! It is very reasonable and great to see the 2-6 year olds get involved.

Outside the schools, the Rocket Camps are the main way we engage the community and May’s camps were once again successful. Excitingly, we ran our first ever Junior Elite Rugby Camp for 9-11 year olds and it proved popular. We have a lot of players in that age bracket who love the game and the feedback was ‘more rugby please!’

Other news around the club of note included the appointment of Michael Mitchell as club captain. Just in time for his 21st birthday, Mitchell has already accumulated a decade of service to the club and it the perfect example of what we are trying to achieve.

Developing juniors to rise to the top of the local game. It meant a lot to him, us and Tom Callighan. Tom was also appointed vice-captain but coaches Mitchell when he was a junior, so it is quite something to be part of the leadership with him now.

One of Mitchell’s team-mates back in the day was Lewis Davey. Lewis was our first professional rugby league player when he signed with Newcastle Thunder and he has now moved to Keighley Cougars to combine his studies at Leeds Trinity. Another Rocket doing well.

Coming up for the rest of June we have the Thunder Summer 9s, the junior leagues will be splitting as the path to the Grand Finals gets shorter and the adult’s season is getting very interesting. There’s some great rugby being played across the club and it is brilliant to see so many, from U8s to open age, pull on the orange and black.

There was the small matter of an U16s Cup Final that I officially can’t report on in this month’s report, but let’s just say I look forward to telling you. It was the first of eight competitions up for grabs in the North East this year and as things stands we are still in contention for seven of them. Not bad. The next two months promises to be interesting and your support as always will be invaluable.

Onwards and upwards

Jeff

Jeff Ball
Chairman