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SURREY
AND YORKSHIRE SEEK RECORDS IN COUNTY FINALS
Surrey will
attempt to complete a unique double while Yorkshire will bid for
a record fourth successive title when they meet Somerset and Warwickshire
in the English County Championship Finals at Little Aston on 29
September � 1 October.
South East Group
champions Surrey are seeking to add the title to the Boys County
Championship they won for the first time earlier this month at East
Devon. And no county has ever held both trophies simultaneously.
Unfortunately
for Surrey, two of their leading lights, double English champion
and Walker Cup star Paul Casey and David Ryles, semi-finalist in
both the Amateur and English Championships, are away at college
in the United States and unavailable. Both were in the side when
Surrey won the South East Qualifying by eight shots at West Herts.
As was Mark Side, who is now a professional.
However, Surrey�s
line up includes Zane Scotland, 18, who won all his six matches
in the Boys County Finals, and Josh Simons, also 18, an absentee
at East Devon but a boy international and a member of this year�s
victorious Jacques Leglise Trophy side.
Their line-up
also includes Welsh international Morgan Palmer, a former Surrey
champion, and the current county champion, John Franks as well as
Joel Wormald, winner of the Berkhamstead Trophy in April, runner
up in the Lagonda Trophy and third in the Berkshire Trophy.
Yorkshire, county
champions at Ferndown in 1997, Stoneham in 1998, and Seaton Carew
last year, will take some stopping again despite the fact that four
of their 1999 winning line-up have turned professional. The three
survivors, internationals Graeme Clark and Richard Finch and former
English Mid-Amateur champion Stephen East, are again in the team.
Joining them
will be former boy international Jonathan Lupton, Fraser Kelley,
son of ex-international Mike Kelley, Darryl Bery, and Gareth Davies.
Cec Bloice, who has masterminded all their three previous triumphs,
will again skipper Yorkshire.
Somerset, in
the finals for the first time in 10 years, can also boost two internationals
in John Morgan and David Dixon although a third, Colin Edwards,
didn�t play in South West Week and is unavailable.
However, they
also have a promising teenager in Lee Cofield, who reached the fourth
round of the English Amateur at Royal Lytham in August, and the
experienced Matthew Lock, who played in the 1997 County Finals with
Cornwall.
Somerset were
runaway winners of the South West Qualifier at Royal North Devon,
winning by 21 shots. It was a little closer for Warwickshire, who
eased through by one over Leicestershire at Brocton Hall.
They will have
the services of Tom Whitehouse, a member of the England�s victorious
European Youth Team Championships squad and who enjoyed a fine senior
debut in recent Home Internationals at Carnoustie. The Maxstoke
Park 20-year-old has been the Warwickshire champion for the past
four years.
Warwickshire,
under the playing captaincy of Peter Chalkey, also include David
Fletcher, an ex-boy international, who formerly played for Gloucestershire.
But they also will be without their American college student, Jamie
Elson who is at Augusta State.
Yorkshire will
be seeking their 16th win in their 30th Final
while Surrey have won the title nine times to Warwickshire�s five.
However, despite their many successes, Surrey haven�t appeared in
the Finals since they last won in 1981 at Ferndown, while Warwickshire�s
last Final was in 1990 at Hayling when Yorkshire and Somerset also
appeared. Somerset has yet to lift the trophy.
The Finals are
contested on a round robin basis, each match consisting of three
foursomes and six singles. In the first round of matches on 29 September,
Surrey will play Somerset and Yorkshire meet Warwickshire.
Somerset
Lee
Corfield (Burnham and Berrow)
David
Dixon (Enmore Park)
Philip
Fisher (Tall Pines)
Matthew
Lock (Enmore Park)
John Morgan
(Clevedon)
Bradley
Porter (The Kendleshire)
Duncan
Whittaker (Bath)
Surrey
Mark
Booker (Royal Mid-Surrey)
John Franks
(Shirley Park)
Morgan
Palmer (St George�s Hill)
Zane Scotland
(Woodcote Park)
Josh Simons
(Coombe Hill)
Kieran
Staunton (Woodcote Park)
Joel Wormald
(Kingswood)
Warwickshire
Peter
Chalkey (Copt Heath)
Matthew
Cryer (Coventry Finham)
David
Fletcher (Ingon Manor)
James
Hempill (Walmley)
Bill Nicolson
(Coventry Finham)
Ben Senior
(Maxstoke Park)
Tom Whitehouse
(Maxstoke Park)
Yorkshire
Darryl Berry (West Bradford)
Graeme
Clark (Doncaster)
Gareth
Davis (Abbeydale)
Stephen
East (Moortown)
Richard
Finch (Hull)
Fraser
Kelley (Ganton)
Jonathan
Lupton (Middlesborough)
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