Any summer break without football is always rather agonising and especially when an exciting new season is just around the corner.
Thankfully for those who have been counting down the days in recent weeks, their Newcastle Blue Star sum will soon equal zero.
With this weekend heralding the beginning of a new Northern League campaign, Blue Star’s first task is the relatively short trip to Jarrow and after winning promotion just a couple of months ago, this is the fixture that everyone has been waiting for.
Especially after what has certainly been a testing pre-seasonperiod and although a routine 4-1 victory was collected at Percy Main in their first outing, that would be the only win recorded in six attempts.
However, there are still plenty of positives to take from that collective half dozen and although it would have been easier to schedule fixtures against teams lower down the football pyramid, Brian Smith and his management team decided to look up the food chain instead.
Considering opponents came in the guise of teams such as Sunderland U21’s, West Allotment Celtic and Spennymoor, these warmup fixtures were always going to be tough and even in defeat plenty would have been learned along the way.
Teachings that the Blue Star management team will hope to put into practice on Saturday, as they go up against a side that only managed to avoid relegation to Step 7 at the back end of last season – the step that NE15’s finest have now left behind.
Of course, this does not mean that maximum points on the road are going to be a foregone conclusion, they will have to be earned just as much as any other. At the same time, there is no doubt Smith and his group of players will be raring to go at the Perth Green Community Association.
Something which sets up Saturday’s clash rather nicely indeed. A big thanks to Jarrow for the upcoming hospitality and for those who will be attendance from an away perspective, safe travels both there and back.