North East Manchester Hawks made history with the club’s men’s and women’s teams being crowned Premier Handball League champions, both with teams that have mostly played together since junior level.
When Donna Hankinson and Sue Whitehead formed NEM Hawks in 2010 they couldn’t have imagined the journey that both they, and their players, would be about to embark on. A meeting in 2009 with the England Handball Association (EHA), intending to create a new junior development programme with London 2012 Olympics on the horizon, was the catalyst for bringing together a group of teenage boys and girls that would go on to conquer English handball.
“We had been asked at one of our England development meetings to get a county team together at Under-16s,” Whitehead told Fen Regis Trophies.
“We went away and did that off the back of the work with the schools and, as a result of that, those young people that were 14 or 15 that we engaged, played in that first county tournament.
“It was those kids that we engaged through the schools…they pushed us to carry on playing and to establish the club.”
Fast-forward to 2022 and it is those same girls and boys that made up the nucleus of the Hawks’ title-winning sides, clinching a historic double for the club born from the legacy of the London Olympics.
“41 Years I’ve Been Involved in Handball”
Hankinson and Whitehead’s relationship goes back much further than the beginning of the Hawks, with the former being coached by the latter at a holiday camp in Salford before eventually becoming teammates.
“There’s about a 10-year age gap between myself and Sue…obviously, Sue’s the older one!”, Hankinson said. “In Salford, where we’re both from, in the summer holiday you used to be able to go to your local sports centre and pay 10p and you get to try different sports.
“Sue was a sports leader and I was a child – possibly a very highly-strung child -participating in Sue’s organised sports activities.”
“I was a leader dealing with challenging children in Salford,” Whitehead explained.“They were holiday camps where any youngsters could go in the local area.
“It was on the doorstep and they could take part in any sports that we were able to deliver.”
Hankinson added: “[Salford] was the UK handball capital, but it’s not any longer. That’s how we met.
“I took to handball – I’m very sporty anyway. I’ve done all sorts of different sports, as has Sue. Handball was the one thing that really engaged me.
“I’ve played handball since I was 10 years old. 41 years I’ve been involved in handball.”
Whitehead said: “I was only introduced to [handball] when I was 21, so I was really late. I did my coach’s certificates, which is why I was delivering in holiday camps.
“We went on to be teammates, Donna and I, at Salford Ladies Handball Club, as it was known then.”
The pair enjoyed success together at Salford, the highlight of which came in 1987 with the club becoming the first English team to win a European Cup Winner’s Cup tie beating Belgian side Sasja Antwerp.
“We were quite successful at Salford,” Hankinson says modestly of a side that won three league titles and four British Cups.“As a club, we were the first club to ever with a European Cup match.
“To be part of that was pretty awesome. To this day, even taking in everything we’ve achieved at Hawks, it is probably the one experience of handball that was unbelievable.
Olympic Legacy
On 6 July 2005, London was awarded the 2012 Olympics and work soon started to ensure that not only the Games themselves were a success, but that a legacy would be left. Handball was no different and the EHA was keen to capitalise on the opportunity in 2009 with the state of the sport, as Hankinson describes it, “on its backside”.
“When we got the Olympics, handball had been on its backside from a junior development point of view,” she said.“Virtually, I would say, everybody playing handball at that point was older than me and Sue, or they were foreign. We weren’t developing and bringing any youngsters through.
“We went to a meeting with the guy that was heading up the EHA at the time to put in a junior development programme.
“At that same meeting were a couple of teachers from Oldham. Sue was working at a school in Rochdale at the time – I sell bedding, so I don’t work in sports at all.
“I think myself, Sue, and these two teachers just said we’ll put a Greater Manchester team together.
“We came initially from trying to develop a county squad to start an England development team, that would be part of the legacy for the 2012 Olympics.
“The kids just loved it – they just took to the sport and all got on dead well. We made the decision to form the club at the time.”
Overcoming the Odds
While Salford was once a hotbed for British handball, that was no longer the case. Fourteen and 15-year-olds, who had mostly played other sports such as football and netball, were the foundation upon which NEM Hawks were built, alongside the hard work and dedication of the club’s founders.
Success soon came to the club’s juniors, both the girls and boys. At Under-18 level, the Hawks’ girls team won six consecutive championships – including going five seasons undefeated, which is something that Whitehead feels is overlooked by many.
“With the girls,” Whitehead said.“When they were Under-18 we went five seasons undefeated. That’s never spoken about, but that was pretty amazing what we achieved with the girls’ group when they were juniors.”
The girls’ first national final saw Hankinson come up against a familiar opponent in a Warrington Wolves side that she coached the previous season before setting up the Hawks.
Hankinson said: “The first year we were formed, the girls got to the national final and played the Warrington team I coached previously. In the final, we beat them.
“The girls’ team, particularly, still has the same nucleus of the team that we started with when they were 14 and 15, which I think is what is the amazing thing about the journey we’ve been on. We’ve been successful as juniors and now we’re English champions.”
Historic Double
While the Hawks racked up silverware at junior level, the transition into senior handball proved challenging, with several near-misses in both league and cup competitions.
“They (the players) all wanted to stick together and win something as a senior squad,” Hankinson admitted. “I think we have been pretty determined to do that and we have come close a few times with the girls and with the lads in senior cups.
“The girls two years ago lost the cup final after two periods of extra-time – trust me, that was heartbreaking!
“I think Covid-year, the lads probably would have won the league. The league finished early because of Covid.”
The two founders, who double up as coaches of both teams, were every bit as desperate to lift trophies with the group of players they have had, for the most part, for more than a decade. Not just for the satisfaction of winning at every level with their players, but also to silence some of the harsh criticism that, Hankinson says, they receive because they are female coaches.
“I think to have done what we have as two females, I don’t think anyone can appreciate how hard it’s been for us.
“We have had to come up against a lot of, not overtly sexist, but I do think we have had a lot of sexist undercurrents. People that don’t even realise that what they are saying is sexist.
“It’s just things like that that people don’t realise that what they are saying is overtly sexist. I think there’s been an undercurrent there with us such as ‘you’re emotional because your female’ – we’re not, we’re just passionate.
“We’re as passionate as any male coach has ever been. That’s the way we are. We care.
“Emotionally, we’re invested a bit differently because we have got such close relationships with the players, so you are emotionally invested more and you do care more about the outcome.”
The men claimed the club’s first league title of the year in April before the women’s made it a double a month later by sealing their league win. Hankinson and Whitehead etched their names into history as the first female coaching team to win national titles in both the men’s and women’s games.
“Once the men won the league, we really wanted the women to win the league,” Hankinson said. “It was nice that it was done in the same year because we didn’t want them to feel left behind or secondary to what the guys were achieving.
“I always felt I had to win something with the lads to be taken seriously as a coach because women’s sport is viewed as secondary to men’s sports still.”
She added: “I don’t know if Sue feels the same, but I think they’ve only realised in the last six months how close we all are. I think it’s also the fact if you looked at the previous league winners for the last 20 years, 95% were European-based players.
Whitehead said: “I think if you were to look at the teams over the years, they have players that come and go from different areas of Europe. They might come into London to work for whatever reason and they come and go.
“They don’t always stay at a club for more than a few seasons. We’re definitely unique in the way that players have stayed with the club from that early age.
“What we’ve achieved does mean a lot to them.”
“It Has Come Full Circle”
Now that Hankinson, Whitehead, and their players have won league titles at senior level there is a sense around the club that things have come full circle. Though questions remain as to how the journey continues, neither of the club’s founders wishes to see the club fizzle out.
Hankinson added: “It’s hard because it has come full circle. It is a bit, do you want to draw a line under it now and move on?”
“As a legacy,” Whitehead says, “We want to hand the club over to those that have been with us all these years.
“We’ve got a lot of them that are really knowledgeable now as coaches and have done basic awards. If they want the club to continue, it’s about handing the baton over to them.”
In terms of sporting achievement, what Whitehead and Hankinson have achieved from taking a group of schoolboys and girls to becoming national champions in a little over 10 years is a truly remarkable feat.
While it remains to be seen what the future holds for the NEM Hawks, there is one thing that is for certain. The club’s highly-driven founders and coaches will not allow England’s handball champions to vanish without leaving a legacy of their own.
