Each member county is entitled to send two delegates. Ihor Lewyk attended for Yorkshire. Rupert Jones was prevented from attending at the last minute.

Comments by Steve Mann, 29/07/2017

The NCCU encompasses the 8 “counties” Northumberland, Durham, Cleveland, Yorkshire, Cheshire & North Wales, Merseyside, Lancashire, and Cumbria. Engagement by counties in the team championships is very low, with only 3 counties playing in the inter-county over-the-board competitions.

In the past, each county entered a first team and a second team, each of 20 players, and two counties would meet each other at both levels at the same time, in the same place. That meant a county getting 40 players to each of 7 matches.

Nowadays, there are championships at 6 levels: Open, Under-180, Under-160, Under-140, Under-120 and Under-100, each one being for teams (in the NCCU at least) of 12 players. (At the English Counties stage team are of 16.) Full engagement would require a county to field about 72 players per opposing county. Thus, nowadays, more captains are needed, and more players are needed. The modern system has, not too surprisingly, led to smaller counties dropping out of participation.

Last season, the NCCU county team championships had the following participating teams:

	Open	U‑180	U‑160	U‑140	U‑120	U‑100
Cheshire & North Wales
Cleveland
Cumbria			1
Durham
Lancashire	1	1	1	1	1	1
Merseyside					***
Northumberland
Yorkshire	1		1	1
section totals	2	1	3	2	1	1

Thus there were only three counties participating. The idea has therefore been mooted of allowing “tandem” teams, such as “Northumberland & Durham”.

Despite the paucity of entries, the Union is entitled to nominate (up to) 2 teams for each section of the English Counties championships run by the ECF. Thus Lancashire could have failed to “qualify” only in the U-160 section, and had walk-overs in three sections!

Cleveland and Merseyside are both at least considering, if not intending, cessation of involvement in the NCCU. ***

Low levels of entries in the NCCU’s Club Championship were lamented. Ihor Lewyk is recorded as saying he’d mention it at the YCA AGM. A very few Yorkshire clubs do enter, but the existence of a county-wide Yorkshire league largely renders the NCCU’s event relatively uninteresting to Yorkshire clubs. (The late Mike O’Hara, who was never shy of criticising Yorkshire at NCCU meetings, once mentioned to me that he was in awe of Yorkshire’s Woodhouse Cup competition, wishing there was an equivalent in Lancashire.)

*** PS It since transpired that Merseyside decided to enter a team in the 2017-18 U-120 competition.