GIRLS at a Teesdale school have taken up a sport that has been absent from its curriculum for 120 years.
About 100 girls between 11 and 18 at Barnard Castle School are playing the native American sport of lacrosse.
To help the girls, the school has taken on American coach Erin Maturo, from Michigan, who said: "Lacrosse has already been sold in the south of the country so we are trying to pick it up and make it a staple sport in the north.
"I was hired through the English Lacrosse Association and they placed me here because Barnard Castle was looking for a coach. The girls seem to be enjoying it."
The sport is a cross between football, hockey and basketball. Twelve players a side aim to score in a goal 6ft square using a stick with a net on the end. Men's lacrosse is played in a similar fashion to ice hockey while the women's game is closer to the original and is less physical.
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