The weekend of 10th/11th June was the presentation of the awards for the football season for Newton Aycliffe Youth Football Club, held at Newton Aycliffe Big Club. The awards were held over 5 sessions and attended by almost 1000 people made up of players, coaches and their families. Representatives from Newton Aycliffe FC, the senior team from the town, were on hand to present all the awards. Thank you goes to Mark Wood and Ben Reay for giving up their spare time. Thanks also to Aycliffe Radio, Paul Howarth, for providing the music and Carrie Howarth for the photography. Each session started with an overview of the club and their achievements. The club proudly confirmed that they were only one of 24 clubs in Durham FA to be awarded the prestigious 3* accreditation by the FA, recognising the full male and female player pathways that the club have established over the past few years, from Little Eagles to the u23’s and Wildcats to the women’s team. The club had 21 affiliated teams and had 325 players involved in the football club every week, led by over 50 qualified coaches. The under 10 Eagles were awarded the TJFA Fair Play Award, the under 12 Angels Blue were Premier League Winners and runners up in the League Cup, the under 18 girls were winners of the League Shield and finally the under 23’s won their league cup. The players from each of the 21 teams and the 2 development sections were awarded trophies in recognition of their efforts throughout the season. Berni Borsberry, secretary, announced that the club had decided to introduce a special annual award, The Darren Scott Community Award, in memory of the coach of the under 15 boys who died suddenly earlier this year. The first recipients were Mark Preston and Cobblers Hall over 40’s to recognise the outstanding support and fund raising effort they did for Darren’s family, and this was presented by Darren’s wife Donna. Preparation now starts for 2022/2023 with another substantial amount of funding from the football foundation being spent on the Oakleaf sports fields taking them towards being some of the best pitches in the County. With increased teams and expanding development sections it will be another fantastic season to look forward to at Newton Aycliffe Youth FC. For further information visit: www.nayfc.com