This weekend saw 5 members of Percy Park Pirates attend the All England Training camp in Welbeck down near Loughborough for the final stages of their European Touch Championships campaign. The final squads of 16 players will be announced in the next week and we wish our players the best of luck on being selected.

Representing the women are Lesley McCallion and Aimee Findlay who hoping to make the final 16 of the England Women's 35s. Then we have Ian Moody and Julian Wilson who are waiting to hear of selection for the England Mens 45s squad. Paul Ainscough, usually a player within the M45s but currectly recovering from injury, has taken on the mantle of the M45s assistant coach, a guaranteed representative from Pirates.

Pirates are also hopeful for some of their youth players to make the England Junior Squads later in the year aiming to play in the Junior Touch Championships held in Stirling, Scotland during August.

Percy Park Pirates were victorious in taking home the silverware at the Touch Northern Cup held at Percy Park RFC on Saturday 24th March. The last time they got their hands on the silverware was at the inaugural tournment in 2016.

The Pirates team consisted of regular players Will Vickery, Christina Finlay, Lesley McCallion, Aimee Findlay, Ian Moody, Richard Moody and Gerard Hargreaves while welcoming 5 new players to the competitive team; Aisling O'Loghlen, Hester Williams, Paul Black, Dan McQuoid and Anthony Nolan. There were also a number of players from the Pirates in the Prickly Beards team; Anna Reeves, Jenny Johnstone, Erica Robertson, Tony Hegarty, Seamus McCallion, Adam Downie and Paul Hillcoat. Prickly Beards were a barbarian style team giving more chances for players to be scouted for the North East Raiders.

7 teams entered this year and the format was a round robin to give all teams the best amount of game time. The final standings looked like this:

The Northern Cup is the North East's touch tournament held at Percy Park RFC every year by Erica Robertson and Paul Ainscough from Pirates. The aim of the tournament is to help touch teams in the north east network and develop their playing and refereeing standards as well as being a scouting opportunity for North Easy Radiers which is the county eqivilent for Touch.

Check out the photos here. 

A few of our Pirates headed to Driotwich to take part in the Junior and Masters Touch Nationals in October. Our players represented us in the Northern Diamonds (W35s), North East Raiders Masters (M45s) and the Northern Stars (M15s, G18s, B18s & X18s).

We are pleased to announce that we have the following Pirates representing us in the England Training Squads. 

If successful in making the final squad of 16 players, they will represent England at the Euro Championships 2018 being held mid July in Nottingham.

Check out the full training squad list below.

Dinner Dance Bash for 'our' Albert

On Saturday 24/10/2010 Percy Park RFC would like to hold a dinner dance at the rugby club to celebrate Albi Durhins tenure as President of the Northumberland Rugby Union. For both Percy Park and 'our Albert' this is 'some accolade'..... and Albert is not shy in letting all who will listen know that fact!!....and he is right... the honour for Percy Park to take the lead in all Northumberland rugby matters does not come around that often and is definitely something that needs to be distinguished with a party!!.

The event we have in mind will be a 3 course meal provided by T&I Bells caterers, a live band (Tiny Afro...if you love to dance this is the band for you), a raffle and table entertainment provided by a magician. The cost will be  £37.50 per person.....hopefully we will make a little money towards the Percy Park Charitable Trust which will aid the development of junior rugby at  Percy Park.

If you are interested in 'taking a table' or simply would like to join in please contact Keith on the email listed above or have a word with Albi...in case you may not know him he is the very distinguished gentleman shown below.