The National Championships will be competed for between men’s and women’s teams from across each Region of England.  Local men’s and Women’s team, the North West Blades, are aiming to stop the London based South East Taipans from retaining their 2012 title. 

Here’s a list of Chargers who’ve made the final squad for the North West Blades, regional team.

Ben Powell (Men’s Player and Women’s Coach)
Gregg Cropper
Jonny Acheson (Men’s Coach)
Phil Heselwood
Simon Whitnall
Terry Careswell
Zack Romanu

Beckie Yousefian
Cathy Spencer
Chloe Llewellyn
Julie Walker
Leanne Simm
Morgan Ogle
Pam Tomlinson
Sarah Acheson (nee Lydon)

The competition runs over the weekend of 23rd and 24th March. Pool games happen on Saturday (9.50am to 6.00pm) and the knock out games are played on Sunday (men’s final at 1.50pm, women’s final at 2.50pm). The games will be played at Bolton School, Chorley New Road, Bolton (car parking map can be found here www.goo.gl/maps/EOWub).   

Gregg Cropper, from the North West Blades men’s team and Chairperson of Manchester Chargers says “the Touch Nationals were put in place to increase the exposure of players to formalised coaching, and it also forms the basis of selection for the England squad. You can gauge the success of this by the English success at last year’s European Championships in Italy.”

David Cope, National Touch Development Co-ordinator and player in the South East Sharks team says “Touch is a great sport, accessible to all, and I’d like to see more women and younger players getting involved. The Touch Nationals is a great opportunity to showcase this sport, we aren’t on TV yet, but if you are close to Bolton I’d recommend you come down and see what all the buzz is about!”

Find out more about touch by visiting www.englandtouch.org.uk, liking them on Facebook (www.facebook.com/EnglandTouch) or following us on Twitter (@EnglandTouch) where the #Touch world is talking #TouchNationals 2013.

Here’s the bit we’ve all been waiting for: National Touch Series (NTS) and Challenge Touch Series (CTS) dates and venues for 2013.

National Touch Series (NTS)
NTS 1 – April 20th – Nottingham
NTS 2 – May 11th – London
NTS 3 – June 1st – Cambridge
NTS 4 – July 6th – MANCHESTER!!

Challenge Touch Series (CTS)
CTS 1 – April 27th – Thames Valley
CTS 2 – May 18th – Newcastle
CTS 3 – June 29th – Widnes
CTS 4 – July 13th – Venue tbc

NTS/CTS Finals – July 27th – Venue tbc

Get filling in the doodle folks, it’s going to be a big year!
http://manchesterchargers.com/?page_id=3749

Some of you may know Uma Ramaswami, she is a Level 3 Touch Europe Referee, who’s recently moved to Manchester. She will soon be delivering a Level 1 referee course in Manchester

When: Sunday 13th of January 2013,
Time: 10am to 3pm.
Where: Manchester – Exact venue TBC.
Cost: £20 – This includes course material, whistle/lanyard and badge once successfully passed

Who is this course intended for?
Well, this is a  course for pretty much anyone who enjoys playing Touch. If you wish to learn the rules, become a better player, become a better referee, learn referee techniques or any other reason, please do let us know. If many of you wish to do a level 1 course, we will arrange further dates as required.

What do you need to bring with you?
You will need to bring some out door shoes, clothes and a whistle.
A pad if you wish to take notes, although you will have a course hand out on the day. Pencils, erasers, pen.
A packed lunch.
Tea and coffee will be provided.

What will the day entail?
We will start indoors with a presentation and go through the course handout.
We will then go out doors for some core drills that we need to know as a referee, hand signals and referee whistle technique.
There will be a closed book examination (on everything we learnt on the day)  and the results will be announced on the day.

If you are interested to register for the Level 1 Referee course, please contact Uma on ramaswamiu@hotmail.com (07718805871) or speak with Gregg Cropper or Julie Walker (manchesterchargers@hotmail.co.uk), who will pass on your information. Please send your name, a contact email address and telephone number.

Uma

Below is the information regarding the upcoming trials for the Men’s and Women’s North West Blades Touch teams that will contest the 2013 Nationals in March next year.

Date: 2nd of Dec and 9th of Dec
Venue: Our Lady’s Sports College, Alworth Road, Higher Blackley, Manchester, M9 ORP
Time: 11.45am-2pm
Cost: £3
Other: Please bring both Trainers and Boots!!

Program for the day;
11.45am: Registration
12.00pm: Warm Up
12.15pm: Attack/Defence
12.35pm: Attack/Defence
1.10pm: Game 1
1.35pm: Game 2
1.55pm: Warm Down

If you have not already, could you please email to confirm your attendance for both trials (northwestblades@englandtouch.org.uk).

If you are at all concerned about trialling because of lack of experience- please do come down, as there will be an element of development as well!

Chargers had a great representation in the 2012 NW squad, so please make sure you head down and continue this in 2013!

Chargers once again donned their ‘angry black’ kit and headed to Oxford, to defend their Bonfire Touch Tournament title.

A tough group lay ahead, putting us against 3 NTS teams in the early stages, Cambridge, Hot Custard and Galaxy were the ones to look out for.

After a couple of games against new Touch sides, and trialling players in new positions, coach Ben Powell got the team ready for the ones that counted, our aim, top the group!

9-0 Portsmouth
8-1 Loughborough Uni
4-1 Cambridge
2-2 Hot Custard
5-1 Galaxy

Stage 1 – Achieved.

Semi finals

Up next, against our friends and hosts Oxford. A good paced game ensued and Chargers came out on top.
2-0 Oxford

Finals time!

After playing HC in the groups stages, and drawing 2-2, chargers knew what they had to do, and headed out there, to do just that!

Going 1-0 and then 2-0 up in the 1st half, Chargers were on a roll and working hard. A couple of ‘unlucky’ decisions went their way and the final score was 2-2…. drop off time!

Fresh from their drop off win at the NTS finals weekend, Chargers were ready! Losing the crucial ‘rock, paper, scissors’ at the start of the game, allowed HC to tap off, after around 4/5 sets of line attack on the Chargers scoreline, they eventually found a chink in the armour and scored.

Right to reply? And reply we did!
A set play from the tap-off, saw Chargers touch down, to make it 3-3.

The teams were 3v3 and energy was sapped from both squads. After numerous switches and umpteen A’s, Chargers found the line to be crowned 4-3 Winners.

A great day and a great way to end the season!

Team:

1. Gregg Cropper
2. Jonny Acheson
3. Simon Whitnall
4. Ben Smith
5. Zack Romanu
6. Phil Heselwood
7. Cathy Spencer
8. Beckie Yousefian
9. Pam Tomlinson
10. Sarah Lydon
11. Leanne Simm
12. Liana Leota

A field of around 30 women of all abilities assembled for Chargers’ first ever ‘Women’s Only’ development evening. Australian Men’s 30s Coach, John Singh was on hand to keep everyone in check, and soon noted the girls best assets, their voices of course!

They learned the importance of communicating on the pitch, as well as a host of other basic skills including; passing and catching techniques, initiating the touch, dumping the ball, three man drive, and the importance of running into space and drawing defensive players.

Warm-Up fun

Passing Drills

As the sun set and the light ebbed away, they put it all into practise in a friendly game to finish the session, there were some good skills on show and it was a fluid game of touch. An impressive display after just one session and a great base to build on.

It was lots of fun and even the most experienced players picked up a tip or two to take away.

Dumping The Ball – Techniques

Technical Tips

Thanks to all the Chargers for helping run the night, Julie Walker and Gregg Cropper for organising it and also Alistair Teager, Ben Powell, Ryan Miemczyk and Jonny Acheson for running the session.

Also thanks Trafford MV for allowing us to host and to Touch Football Australias John Singh for helping out too!

Most importantly, ladies, don’t forget the easy bit – talk and talk some more, then spread the word about touch. See you all at the next session… (to be announced very soon!!)

Photos

See lots more photos below in our gallery… feel free to ‘tag’ yourselves in the pics on our facebook page too http://www.facebook.com/manchesterchargers

Calling all Ladies,

Please see the above poster for the Women’s Touch development night on Tuesday 14th August.

The evening will run by accredited England Touch coaches and will be a friendly, informal session for any women that are interested to come along and learn a little bit more about Touch: info about the game (positions, tactics); drills and skills stations to help players understanding of what to do when they’re playing; and all finishing off with a few women-only games to put into practice what’s been learnt.

Basically, this is just a chance for you all to learn a bit more, play a bit more, get involved more, and give you some info if you want to continue playing when the local leagues finish.

When: 7pm, Tuesday 14th August
Where: It’s being held at Trafford MV.
Costs: The evening will cost £5 to attend as we need to cover pitch hire costs.
Please feel free to forward this info to anyone else you think may be interested, the more the merrier! )

Finally, if you could please respond by Fri 10th August to confirm attendance and allow us to plan the evening (manchesterchargers@hotmail.co.uk OR jules@englandtouch.org.uk)

Hope to see you down there..

CLICK HERE: http://www.doodle.com/fyw958i3k82539fv

Chargers are wishing 17 of their best players, the very best of luck for this weekends Touch Nationals at Lilleshall.

1. Ben Powell
2. Gregg Cropper
3. James Robinson
4. Richard Adamson
5. Ryan Miemczyk
6. Carly Heselwood
7. Julie Walker
8. Pam Tomlinson
9. Beckie Yousefian
10. Karen Hall
11. Sarah Lydon
12. Verity  Bright
13. Sarah Poole
14. Cathy Spencer
15. Phil Heselwood
16. Alistair Teager
17. Jonny Acheson

The above chargers players were hand picked by the North West coaches, to represent the region in the ‘Touch Nationals’ on 21st/22nd April.

As a club we have high ambitions for our players to further their potential and are proud to support those that go on to be a representative for the club at Regional and International levels. We therefore are very keen to to assist those players by any means possible, whether this is through coaching guidance or facility provision. As a club we are proud to be able to contribute to the cost for those players who have attained representative honours.

As it is our aspiration to promote the benefits of our club membership, we are subsequently sponsoring the North West shirt (£200) to help all the Chargers members who are selected to go towards their kit costs incurred by playing representative Touch. We hope all players continue to attend Chargers training sessions and develop their Touch with the goal of representing England at the forthcoming 2012 European Champions in September. Once again, congratulations and we look forward to seeing you representing in a Manchester Chargers shirt in this year’s season