This was our first season as Blyth Und15s Girls. We were brought together by Evelyn Hetherington, with simple expectations to enjoy our cricket and develop our skills as individuals and as a team.

Our first tournament was the ECB Lady's Taveners Reginal finals. This was held at Loughborogh University, providing an extremely professional setting. We played three games, winning each one convincingly and then progressed to the 'final'. Both teams in this final had already qualified for the national finals, irrespective of who won this final, but we were fighting for a psychological adavantage. We got off to a bad start as they batted and scored more than they ought to have. As we prepared to bat it became apparent we needed commitment and intelligence from our batters. This came from Lauren Harden, Becki Hetherington and Becky Cooke, helped along by poor bowling from the opposition. We won comfortably in the end and were reginal champions!

Our next challenge was the national finals. These were held at Derby C.C.C. Our first match against Yorkshire was nerve racking. We once again got off to a bad start by bowling an indiciplined line and length. They posted a good score, but we were desperate not to be beaten by our rivals. As we went about the run chase, we quickly accumulted runs, without losing wickets. Sensible, yet attacking batting from Becki Hetherington and Harriet Rogers ensured a tight but successful run chase, as Harriet hit a four on the last ball of he match to clinch victory. We continued, but were denied the chance to play in the finals by losing ur next match through irresponsibe batting and lazy fielding. We then went on to play in the third/fourth place play off. We won with five wckets to spare, as Lauren Harden and Hariet Rogers nearly knocked them off in their opening partnership, only losing a wicket with 3 more runs needed for victory. As a result of that, we came third in the national finals, in just our first year together.

This success was then followed up with great publicity from the local papers throughout the year. More recently the team have been awarded with a Basstelaw Sports award, entitled ' JUNIOR SPORTS TEAM' of 2004. This recognition has been unexpected, although thoroughly deserved when you consider the amount of work the girs put into their sport and how much success they have achieved this year. WELL DONE!