At the 2017 YCA AGM, Jeremy Hamm indicated he’d be willing to consider taking on the Yorkshire under-180 team captaincy (unfilled last season) if his new ECF grade was under 180. The admittedly provisional new ECF grading list was published at the end of June, with Jeremy listed at 178. The “final” list, incorporating late data and reflecting corrections, is highly unlikely to show any difference.

Accordingly, Jeremy has confirmed he will take on the U-180 captaincy for 2017-18.

That, however, still leaves the Under-120* and Under-100 12-board-team captaincy still vacant, unless anyone has stepped forward recently. [ * Under-120 vacancy since filled, 19/10/2017.]

Recently, Lancashire was the only NCCU county to enter the U-120 and U-100 (winning by default). For 2017-18, Merseyside is entering an Under-120 team. It follows that a Yorkshire captain at either of these two levels would initially probably have only the one or two matches to handle in the NCCU competition (v. Lancashire and Merseyside in the U-120, and v Lancashire in the U-100). Subsequent participation in the English Counties stages after that is always optional, if travelling further afield with a 16-board team seems too daunting.