Heardman's Delight At Magpies Return

By Tom Easterby - Newcastle United Club Reporter

After making his first appearance for Newcastle United Under-23s in well over a year, forward Tom Heardman expressed his delight at being able to pull on the black and white shirt once more.

The 20-year-old missed the entire 2015/16 campaign with injury after bursting onto the scene with a flurry of goals the previous season.

On Monday night, the tall striker started for Peter Beardsley's side in their 1-0 friendly defeat at Ashington, playing the opening 45 minutes.

And afterwards, he told nufc.co.uk that it was a "great feeling" to walk out in a United shirt after so long on the sidelines.

"It was a great feeling to be putting on the kit again. It has been so long that each little thing was exciting building up to the game," he said.

"It's good to be playing competitive football for the first time in a long time - I've been back training a little bit now but it's tough to replicate the feeling of playing in a proper game.

"They gave us a good game, and it was good for me to play against a team that's working hard and doing everything they can to stop you."

Heardman had a few fleeting sights of goal as the Magpies dominated the first half against Steve Harmison's Northern League outfit.

While they couldn't quite make a breakthrough at Woodhorn Lane, Heardman was heartened by making his return - and said the aim now is to get some more minutes under his belt, and ensure there is no repeat of the injury nightmare that ruined the last 12 months for him.

"It's been a lot of hard work, and I've got a lot of people that I'm very grateful to for getting me back to playing my first game, but I've just got to think about staying fit now," he said.

"It's a new chapter in the process and it's about staying fit now, playing as many games as I can, working hard in training to get my fitness back to what it can be and then just pushing on from there.

"I've managed my injuries so they don't give me any bother anymore, but you can't replicate match practice. There's no substitute for playing games, and the only way you can get better with that is to get time on the pitch, and that's what I'm after now."

Ben Harmison scored the only goal of the game with just four minutes remaining as a youthful United second string lost their unbeaten pre-season record.

Heardman reckons the defeat was a "humbling" experience, and insists the players will be out to ensure there is no repeat of such a loss when the Premier League two season kicks off with a trip to Norwich City a week on Monday.

"You've got to take the scoreline as it is. Whether you dominate the game or not, that doesn't mean you're always going to win," he said.

"Credit to them, they never stopped fighting for it - it was late in the game that they got the goal and they could have switched off, but they were looking for chances even at the end and that's credit to them.

"It's disappointing for us and we feel like with the possession we had and the quality we had in the team, we should be winning games like this, but it's quite a humbling experience coming to places like this and coming up against players that are very keen to put one over on you.

"We can't be unhappy with the scoreline - we have to take it on the chin and make sure it doesn't happen again."