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Pompoms at the ready!
Gimme a C, gimme an H, gimme an E, gimme an E, gimme an R, gimme an L, gimme an E, gimme an A, gimme a D, gimme an I, gimme an N, gimme a G.... what do you get? The latest craze to sweep Wearside.
It might have its roots Stateside, but the girls at Houghton Dance and Performing Arts Academy have got cheerleading down to a fine art with their own special brand of enthusiasm.
The chants, the cheers, the routines, and the teamwork have made the Houghton troupe a tight-knit lot, with more girls signing up all the time.
Owner Anne Thompson launched the academy 24 years ago, and has seen cheerleading grow and grow in popularity.
She said: "We've been running classes for years but it's really, really popular at the moment, possibly because of films like High School Musical and Bring It On."
The troupe perform every year at the annual carnival parade during Houghton Feast, and travel out to Disneyland Paris, where they take part in a parade with hundreds of other squads, and put on their own 20-minute show.
Anne's dream has grown from one dance class for children in the local sports hall in 1984, into a huge academy teaching cheerleading, ballet, disco, ballroom, freestyle and theatre.
The mum-of-four moved to Houghton from London when she was six and has never looked back, passing her dancing genes to her two daughters.
Anne's youngest daughter, Maria, 15, has been dancing since she could walk, and is an avid cheerleader.
She said: "I like lots of different types of dance but cheerleading is brilliant: it's the atmosphere, the energy, the chants, and working together to come up with different cheers."
Now 120 girls of all ages are signed up to cheer at the academy – all they need now is a team to support.
And they're setting their hopes high.
Anne said: "They'd love to cheer for SAFC or Houghton's rugby team – that would be brilliant."
In Washington, at the Prima School of Performing Arts, principal Clare Robson has seen the cheerleading classes snowball.
She said: "It certainly seems to be very popular at the moment.
"The children enjoy being able to dance to pop music and the pompoms make it even more fun.
"We take pupils to competitions and the last one we went to in Blackpool had more than 700 entrants, so it was enormous."
Director of the British Cheerleading Association, Bob Kiralfy, thinks he knows the secret behind the sport's popularity.
He said: "Cheerleading is very much the up-and-coming sport for girls.
"For young women, the chance to dress like pop stars, get their hair done, and be athletic in front of huge audiences has a certain kind of appeal."
But far from being superficial, cheerleading has a deeper meaning.
Bob said: "It's about expressing a pride in who you are and where you come from and I think we will see more and more teams setting up in the North East.
"There's an old lampoon image of cheerleaders put across in some sitcoms, but often they are ambassadors within their school."
The academy offers disco and cheerleading classes for children aged three and over, who can then specialise in cheerleading when they turn eight.
There is also a class for teenagers every Thursday which is proving to be a runaway hit.
Anne's oldest daughter Tricia teaches the advanced class.
Advanced is the word: there's nothing fluffy about these routines, which require athletic strength and co-ordination.
Anne said: "We recommend a dance class at the same time because it's very energetic and you've got to have stamina and arm strength.
"It's very good exercise."
Go team, go!
Classes on Wearside: Platinum Dance Studio runs cheerleading classes every Saturday. For details, call 565 7270.
Houghton Dance and Performing Arts Academy run classes throughout the week from beginners to advanced. For details, call 0191 584 0764.
Prima School of Performing Arts in Washington offers cheerleading classes for children aged three and over. For details, call 0845 094 6460.
The h-i-s-t-o-r-y of cheerleading
Cheerleading started in America in the late 1880s when crowd chanting became a way to encourage school spirit at athletic events.
The first organized, recorded cheer was "Ray, Ray, Ray! TIGER, TIGER, SIS, SIS, SIS! BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! Aaaaah! PRINCETON, PRINCETON, PRINCETON!" – at Princeton University in 1884.
Princeton graduate Thomas Peebles introduced organised cheering at football games at the University of Minnesota.
In 1898, University of Minnesota student, Johnny Campbell, directed a crowd in cheering "Rah, Rah, Rah! Sku-u-mar, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity! Varsity! Varsity, Minn-e-So-Tah!", making Campbell the very first cheerleader.
Soon after, the University of Minnesota organised a "yell leader" squad of six male students, who still use Campbell's original cheer today
In 1903, the first cheerleading fraternity, Gamma Sigma was founded.
Cheerleading started out as an all-male activity, women began participating in 1923. At this time, gymnastics, tumbling, and megaphones were incorporated into popular cheers.
Today, around 97 per cent of cheerleading participants are female, but males still make up 50 per cent of collegiate cheering squads.
There are an estimated 16,500 cheerleaders in the UK.
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