As county team captains and contacts will be aware, Bryan Bainbridge has been gathering county team entries for 2026-27 and arranging competition structures to accommodate the increased number of entries. The Open is being run as a 1-day Jamboree. The U2050 is being run initially with separate East and West zones followed by finals etc.

Bryan has also circulated a spreadsheet with contact details for county team captains and others.

Mick Norris has now set up fixtures on LMS, with as much info as he had to date.

Our thanks are due to Bryan and Mick for their worthy efforts, and of course to county officials who have organised their teams.

The number of teams entered has risen from 2025-26’s 16 teams to 23 for 2026-27. Northumberland’s U-1850 team has been “lost”, but that is due to Northumberland entering four new teams with subsequent redeployment of resources. Besides Northumberland’s new teams there are two new teams from Merseyside.

Section	Entrants		LMS Link
Open	Greater Manchester Northumberland NEW Yorkshire	Played as 1-day Jamboree	Open
Under 2050	East Cleveland Northumberland NEW Northumberland Juniors NEW Yorkshire	West Greater Manchester Lancashire Merseyside NEW	East West
	Semi-Finals (E1 v W2 and W1 v E2)		½-Finals
	Final and 3rd-place playoff *		Final & 3rd playoff
Under 1850	Cumbria Greater Manchester Merseyside Northumberland Yorkshire		Under 1850
Under 1650	Greater Manchester Lancashire Merseyside NEW Northumberland NEW Yorkshire		Under 1650
Under 1450	Greater Manchester Lancashire Yorkshire		Under 1450

(* playoff for the additional place in the ECF National stages)