Northumberland-based rugby league club, Cramlington Rockets has risen from small beginnings to the top of the sport, creating an value-driven environment and production line of talent that has led to the club becoming a watchword for community engagement though sport.

Founded by President, Steve Beaty on 8th September 2000 as Killingworth Rockets, the moniker of ‘Rocket’ came from the nearby home of famed locomotive engineer, George Stephenson.

Despite famously enjoying their first session in a car park - the only floodlit space at the time - the club enjoyed a surge of interest in its early years, culminating in lifting the cross-border Calcutta cup and its juniors being crown North East champions in 2007, the venue of Kingston Park stadium dripping with foreshadowing.

2009 saw fresh blood joined the club’s management, with the President’s three sons graduating from players to coaches amongst others joining the ranks as the club oversaw a move to Cramlington.

The move north proved to be a launchpad for success with more honours following both for the club and its players.

With over 40 players now having passed through professional club’s Newcastle Thunder’s highly regarded academy, now based at the same Kingston Park stadium, junior international call ups followed for over a dozen players, with several also moving into professional rugby. Super League and the full England remain the only levels its Geordie offspring have not reached.

Quickly becoming the one to watch when it came to rugby league development in an untapped area, the Rockets were at the vanguard of growth for the region that has seen participation in rugby league grow year-on-year at a rate surpassing the traditional ‘heartlands’ in the North West and Yorkshire.

2015 was a turning point for all in the North East scene when Super League’s Magic Weekend arrived at Newcastle United’s St James’ Park and the sweeping Sky Sports cameras caught sight of hundred of Rockets garbed in the club’s famed orange. Record crowds meant the travelling show stayed on Tyneside for four years.

The quality of the community engagement emanating from England’s northern most county continued to impress those at the top of the sport, to the point the Rockets were named RFL National Club of the Year in 2017.

When Chairman, Jeff Ball, himself the 2015 RFL national volunteer of the year, lifted the trophy with the words ‘keep watching us’, he was not wrong. The model of success at the Rockets has formed the foundation of the birth of new clubs, Alnwick Bears to the North, and Newcastle Magpies to the West.

The North East’s secret to success is a clear pathway, developed through a mix of collaboration with the professional game in Newcastle Thunder, the governing bodies and many award-winning staff and volunteers like Steve Beaty Jnr, Danny Gilroy and Jordan Robinson, many of whom started their journey into rugby league in that fateful floodlit car park and remain important cogs in the sport’s growth locally.

Shamelessly offering young people the chance to run out in the famed black and white stripes, the Magpies also marks the first tangible success of the Rugby League World Cup’s legacy programme ahead of the tournament opening in Newcastle in October 2021. World Cup CEO Jon Dutton himself revealing the Magpies’ new strip.

Whilst North East clubs have only just returned to action following a six-month COVID enforced lay off, there remains a healthy optimism around the game with plans to make the most of the World Cup and its five matches held across the region next year.

At the heart of it all remains Cramlington Rockets and you can be sure that they will mark their 21st year next autumn by cheering on England St James’ Park, once again wearing those famous orange strips.