National League - Tees Valley - Women's Div 3  North

Link to the EVA National League Tables

The Tees Valley National League women's squad reformed for the 2007/8 season. The team consists of players from across the Tees Valley and is being coached by Jackson Sweeting (Haughton). As a new and very young team with many players aged 14-16, the expectation was that this would be a development year for the team, yet with three matches played, the team has notched up three wins! Whilst this performance is unlikely to be sustained for the entire season, the message is clear, this team means business!

Jackson Sweeting & Dave McManus took the team to the North West for their first away fixtures on 21st October 2007 - Jackson reported on the team's progress to-date - The Teesvalley team travelled to their first away matches of the season to play Chester and Wirral. This is a development squad with the youngest players at 14 years old and the oldest just 26. Having won the first fixture at home to Loughborough University 2 weeks ago, travelling to Chester was a new experience for these young girls. The team had already lost their first setter, Lauren Sweeting, who underwent a shoulder operation 2 days after the home fixture, and so had to re-organise for the season without her. The first match against Chester went to 5 sets with the Teesvalley girls displaying some tremendous attacks and court covering, eventually taking the 5th set 18-16, against a much more experienced team.  The next game against Wirral looked to be a more difficult task, who again were much more experienced and we lost the first set. Undaunted the girls picked up their game to win the next 3 sets with some great volleyball. Winning the first 3 games is a fine start to the season and all the team worked so hard for each other. Nikki Attah was voted the ‘most valuable player’ by the opposition in both games. The rest of the squad is; Emma Gordon, Sarah Naylor, Lydia Sweeting, Laura Cave, Rachel Moody, Rachael McManus, Kirsty Martin, Vicky Archard, Laura Pearson and Jenny Little. Jackson Sweeting

2007/8 Season

A worthy 7th place was achieved by the newly formed Tees Valley NL women's team. The new team captained by Nikki Attah and consisting of many young players entered the NL with the intent of developing the players and the team and hopefully winning a few sets and possibly the odd match on the way. The 7th place and seven wins on the way far exceeded expectations. The result did not even truly reflect the potential of the team as several matches were lost by quite a small margin and could easily have gone in Tees Valley's favour. A great performance by the team and we look forward to next season. A big thank-you to coaches Jackson Sweeting and Dave McManus. Colin Gordon