WE’RE champions at last. It’s all a bit surreal, to be honest, it still hasn’t really sunk in and I don’t think it will until we get our hands on the trophy – and I’m not sure when that is going to be yet.

Billingham Stars lost 6-1 in the end, which meant we won the league with a 6-2 win over Sheffield Spartans. But when we took to the ice we didn’t really know what was going on there, we just wanted to concentrate on our game and take care of business ourselves, to make sure we won.

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It was pretty much right at the end, when the crowd started chanting ‘champions’, that we all kind of realised that Billingham must have lost and we were going to do it.

But beforehand we really wanted to make sure we didn’t get carried away and we focused on our own game, and we managed do that.

It was a brilliant night. A lot of the lads have been here for a long time now, 90 per cent of the lads have been at the club for a while, so it was really special to finally win that title.

We had a beer with the fans afterwards., but most of the lads were driving, but It was nice to be able to share the success with them and see how much it meant to them.

It was an emotional night as well. We’d had t-shirts made saying ‘Champions’ and ‘For Alan’ on them for Alan Amos. This was his dream, this is what he wanted us to achieve. We’ve done it and we wanted to do something for him.

His wife Tina was there at the end and there were a few tears shed, it was very emotional. He was a massive supporter of us and it was very special to be able to win the league for him.

We want to finish the job now, it’s only half-completed. We want to go through the season unbeaten and win the play-offs, so we’re not going to go mad with the celebrations just yet.

We’d love to carry on and defend the title and build a legacy, but you don’t know what is going to happen with the team. Some people might move on, a couple of the lads have children on the way which could change things, but the target has to be to come back next year and defend the title.