Record-breakers lead celebrations

Newcastle Town's youth team stars were the toast of the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League club's awards night after their record-breaking triumph in the Sentinel Cup.

The First Division South outfit's Midland Floodlit Youth League side proudly paraded their silverware for supporters, officials and the club's senior players after an 8-1 demolition of Alsager Town at Stoke's Britannia Stadium, pictured.

The victory also saw them enter the competition's record books for recording the biggest winning margin in the cup's 120 year history, their result knocking Stafford Rangers' 6-0 victory over Longton Harriers in 2009-09 final into second place. The only other finalists to score eight goals in a final were Stoke City in 1938-39 when they beat Downings 8-5.

Town's celebrations at the Aspire Stadium for their first team, reserves and Sentinel Cup champions were dominated by three players.

In the first team, Aaron Carter took the Manager's Player of the Year Award, Players' Player of the Year Award and Supporters' Player of the Year Award. Andy Nicholls collected the top scorer's accolade.

The reserves' awards saw Jordan Cole win the Manager's Player of the Year Award and Players' Player of the Year Award after he forced his way into manager John Diskin's first team squad.

Despite also collecting the top scorer's honour his clean sweep was ruined by another talented youngster, Matt Hardiman. He picked up the Supporters' Player of the Year Award and the 18-year-old also forced his way into Diskin's squad.

The youth team's accolades also saw one player take over proceedings, centre-back Leon Probert picking up all three awards from the manager, players and supporters. Like Cole, the youngster won promotion to the first team set-up.

Newcastle's manager Diskin is looking ahead to the new season and praised the club's youngsters after a strong finish in the final weeks to the 2012-13 campaign.

He said: "At the end we didn't want the season to end as things are looking very promising with us winning three out of the last four games including beating runners-up Coalville Town.

"It is difficult for our young side to play against teams who have players with 200-300 games under their belts but our youngsters are learning quickly and on their day are a match for most.

"We've had good results against King's Lynn, Coalville, Belper, Stamford and Chasetown, the champions and all the teams in the play-offs. With the addition of three or four players to the squad we will be looking to move up the table."

Diskin also used the event to announce that talented keeper Dave Parton had signed an extension to his contract that keeps the former Stoke player at Newcastle for at least another season.

Diskin added: "When you have someone as good as Dave between the post it gives a great deal of confidence to the other defenders. We think that he is the best keeper in the Evo-Stik League and it is a great signing for the club."

* Castle have announced the first fixtures of their pre-season campaign with a Port Vale first team squad their opening opponents at home on Sunday 7 July.

Fixtures: Thursday 5 July, Crewe Town (A); Sunday July 7, Port Vale (H); Wednesday 10 July, Crewe Alexandra (H); Tuesday 16 July, Ball Hayes Green (A); Saturday 10 August, Stoke City XI (H).