It's the time of year when the football and cricket seasons overlap. Just as cricket starts to gain momentum, unless of course you are Swainby who last weekend were bowled out for an all time low of four, yes four, runs.

Our junior football teams are doing an excellent job representing the area in tournaments throughout the country. Cleveland Juniors Under-14s did a fantastic job winning the prestigious Festival of Junior Football with over 60 other teams taking part and Darlington Spraire Lasses Under-13s competed well in the Leeds City Vixens Tournament five-a-side competition. These young people, and many others like them are a credit to the region.

Cups and titles are still being won on the football field and Darlington Grey Horse took the honours in the Longhorn Hardware Darlington and District League Challenge Cup final and Tindale WMC clinched the Darlington Church and Friendly League. It still amazes me how many junior and amateur football teams there are around here, all full of extremely dedicated people who give up lots of their time to participate in their favourite sport.

It's not just football and cricket either, although they seem to attract the most attention. There's flourishing bowls, darts, snooker, rugby, ice hockey, rowing and golf clubs right round the region all filled with enthusiasts striving to be the best. We're also lucky to have a world class athletics facility not too far away at Gateshead and the members of Darlington Harriers took full advantage at the North of England Athletic Association Championships. A number of medals travelled back down the A1 and many of the athletes recorded personal bests.

A couple more local youngsters will be flying the flag in international competition this summer. Scott Hathaway and Rebecca Golightly from St Johns School in Bishop Auckland will be swimming for Great Britain at the Catholic Schools Sports Federation Games being held in Malta. This high profile, Olympic affiliated event attracts entries from around 25 countries and both Scott and Rebecca have done exceptionally well.

On 96.6tfm we'll still be on air between 12pm and 2pm every Saturday during the summer to keep up to date with all the transfer speculation and gossip and, of course, to keep ahead of events in Portugal where I understand there's some sort of football competition due to happen!