Preview

It’s great to be back, and we are looking forward to starting our National League 2 North campaign, as we host Billingham this weekend. We extend a very warm welcome to you all, and to Billingham and their supporters, and a big welcome to our U12s ball boys.

This week we received the heartbreaking news of the passing of Daniel Holden, the younger brother of Harry Holden. Daniel was a former Hopper’s mini-junior, and a much-loved senior player. Our deepest condolences go to Harry and his family, during this unimaginably difficult time. Harry will bravely take to the field today, showing his immense strength of character, and honouring what Harry and his family feels his brother would have wanted. News like this puts everything into perspective. We will be holding a minute’s silence this afternoon, to honour Daniel’s passing.

Whatever I say next feels so unimportant with the news about Daniel, but there have been some changes to the make-up of National 2 North, with Darlington Mowden Park coming down from National 1, Rossendale and Scarborough coming up from the Regional Leagues, and Macclesfield coming across from National 2 West. The teams leaving the league were Leeds Tykes, who were deservedly promoted to National League 1, Harrogate, who were relegated to the Regional Leagues on the last day of the season, and Lymm and Chester were moved over to National 2 West.

There have also been some interesting changes to the National Leagues around promotion and relegation. Stay with me here…The champions of each of the three National 2 leagues will be promoted to National 1, as previously, but there will now be promotion playoffs for a place in National League 1 between the three 2nd place National 2 teams, and the team finishing 12th in National 1. At the other end of the table, the six champions of the Regional 1 Leagues will be promoted to the National 2 leagues, while the 13th and 14th placed teams in National 2 will be relegated to the Regional Leagues. Additionally, the 12th placed team in each National 2 League will playoff, against the 2nd placed teams from the Regional 1 Leagues, for the right to stay in the league.

Now shifting the focus to us. We have had a solid pre-season, which started for us on 24th June, and have played three pre-season fixtures. We beat Blackburn, at Blackburn (7-57), back on the 9th of August, lost to Sedgley Park (44-7) at Sedge on 16th August, and beat Macclesfield 40-21 last Friday night, here at Lightfoot Green. In each game there were lots of positives, as well as highlighting what we needed to work on. Selection has been challenging, as we have so many good players who are in the mix. We have several new signings that have already been announced on social media; Tom Walker, Louis Singleton, Ben Corless, Ellis Causey, Harrison Causey, Zephyr Maher, Billy Glover, John Hutchings, Jamie Atherton, and Toby Cole. Some of whom make their league debuts on Saturday.

In terms of the game, Billingham finished 13th last season. The league proved to be unbelievably tight, with only 11 points the difference between the team who finished 7th (Hull Ionians- 63 points) and the team who were relegated (Harrogate- 52 points). It shows that every single point is important. Billingham can be unpredictable in how they play. They like to throw the ball around and enjoyed some big wins last season. When we played them at home in November 2024, we won 48-22, scoring 40 unanswered 2nd half points. At their place, in March 2025, they started fast, built a score on us, and we lost 29-19. This was one of our most disappointing performances of last season. That said, last season’s results matter very little. We are ready for the challenge, and we hope you enjoy an entertaining game!

I’d like to wish our other Hoppers’ teams in action this weekend, the very best of luck. Our 2nd team don’t start their league campaign until next weekend.

Please enjoy the game cheer on the boys, and stick around afterwards! Your support means everything!

Dan Orwin
Head Coach

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