Cramlington Rockets are a rugby league

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

 team based in Cramlington

Cramlington

Cramlington is a town and civil parish in the county of Northumberland, North East England, situated north of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. The town's name suggests a probable founding by the Danes or an Anglo-Saxon origin, the word "ton" meaning town. The population was estimated as 39,000 in...

, Northumberland

Northumberland

Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

. They play in the North East Division

Rugby League Conference North East Division

The Rugby League Conference North East Division is a division in the Rugby League Conference, an amateur rugby league competition with sides from across Britain...

 of the Rugby League Conference

Rugby League Conference

The Rugby League Conference , was a series of regionally based divisions of amateur rugby league teams spread throughout England, Scotland and Wales.The RLC was founded as the 10-team Southern Conference League in 1997, with teams from the southern midlands and the...

.

History

Initially, the club was the Killingworth Rockets ARLFC when it was formed by Steve Beaty in 2000 as a junior rugby league club. On the 8 September 2000, 12 lads turned out on the muddy field behind George Stephenson High School for Killingworth Rockets' first ever training session. Less than a year later they took part in a knock-out tournament for teams from Scotland and the North East of England, winning the competition and taking the "Calcutta Cup." This was the first of four cup championships over the next few years, during which time nine of their players won county caps. By 2003, however, there were difficulties in recruiting news youths to fill the under-12s and under-11s as the original players grew up.

The year 2006 saw a turnaround in this trend when, under the direction now of Steven Beaty and Matthew Beaty, the under-11 team finished in second place in the North East Junior League

North East Junior League

The North East Junior League is a rugby league competition for clubs in the North East of England.It is competed for at under-12, under-14 and under-16 levels. Under-10 sides also exist but only play friendlies...

 and were runners-up in the North East cup. A 10-year development plan was put into place to ensure that the club would not encounter such difficulties in the future. That same year, the club took back-to-back North East Junior League titles, becoming the first ever team to do so.

In March 2009, the club both moved to a new location and took a new name, the Cramlington Rockets RLFC. The move from North Tyneside to Northumberland came due to big interest shown during coaching sessions in local schools. The move resulted in player numbers almost doubling and the Rockets expanded to include under-8, under-10 and under-12 teams.

Cramlington Rockets formed their first ever open-age side in 2010 and joined the RLC North East Division

Rugby League Conference North East Division

The Rugby League Conference North East Division is a division in the Rugby League Conference, an amateur rugby league competition with sides from across Britain...

. Led by Andy Stanton, the team finished 6th in their first season. In the 2011 season the RLC North East was split into Premier and regional divisions, Cramlington will take part in the regional division. Steven Beaty left Cramlington in 2011 to take up a rugby development role at Super League team Huddersfield Giants.