YET to reach many parts of the UK, the American sport of lacrosse has already spawned champions from the district since being introduced under a year ago.

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Local schoolchildren have shown great potential after being shown the ropes of the game, Hexham Middle School flying the flag for the North-East as they competed in the National Lacrosse Schools Championships, in Sheffield.

And the district is set to benefit further from the ongoing development, an after school satellite club to be formed in September for youngsters to feed into Newcastle City Lacrosse Club.

The work to promote the sport in the area has been overseen by Hexham-based American native Dave Coldwell, English Lacrosse Association‘s (ELA) participation and communities manager.

The association established a programme 30 years ago to bring experts from America and Canada over to the UK to develop the sport, but was only rolled out in Tynedale schools last year.

In addition to the talented Hexham Middle pupils, youngsters from Sele First, Stamfordham First, St Joseph’s Middle and Corbridge Middle have enjoyed sessions. Next year, ELA will spread the work into Queen Elizabeth High School and Kirkley Hall College.

And Coldwell has been so impressed with the standard and dedication in the area that he firmly believes the sport can thrive in rural Tynedale.

He said: “From what we‘ve seen since we introduced it here, we have enthused pupils about sport and it has also given them the confidence to go to other sports, like cricket or football.

”This is because it’s new to everybody so no-one is at an advantage, and it‘s a sport which is easy to pick up and develop your skills.

“It was fantastic going in at the start of the year and doing sessions, and seeing the amount of childrenwanting to try a different sport. We just wanted to get North-East children playing, so for Hexham Middle to go and win the North-East Regional Champions was brilliant.

“They went to play against teams from across the UK and to finish 11th out of the 22 in the national final is not bad going in their first year, especially when you consider there were 750 schools entered into the competition initially!

”They went to play against schools who have been playing lacrosse for 10 to 15 years, and they were able to compete against the best which proves the huge potential in the area.“

Coldwell, who moved to England in 1998 to develop lacrosse in the country, will be inviting youngsters interested in the sport to come along to the sessions once the satellite club is established next month.

Coaches from the States have already been in the area helping out and funding, secured through a partnership between ELA, Northumberland Sport and Newcastle University, will make sure it is still going strongly for the next year at least.

”There is huge potential for it to grow and children are always asking us, ‘can we play next time’ and ‘we want to play again’.

“We will celebrate the first national lacrosse day on September 19 to celebrate community clubs and it is a real opportunity for us to promote that and offer it to local children, as well as adults.“

Such has been the popularity of lacrosse in Hexham Middle, PE teacher Paul Gaines is working towards making it part of the school‘s curriculum.

More than 30 pupils have expressed an interest in the after school club, and there are strong indications the number will double.

The school is set to be a force to be reckoned with in the coming year too, the successful team of Luke Greig, Toby Ferguson, Matthew Sharman, Harry Coldwell, Olivia Milburn, Ruth Duncan, Phoebe Wells and Freya McNicol moving into Year 7 in September.