Maxstoke was in super condition, the greens were as good as we?ve seen all year (even if Gas and Creedy were apologising for their poor condition!)

Will Smith stepped in at short notice on the Saturday, but had to leave the club to go to work. This meant I would need to put him out number 1 both morning and afternoon. I paired him with Ryan Greenwood in the morning and they were up against two regular first teamers. My faith in Will and Ryan was repaid with a 1 up victory (Ryan holing a pressure 10 footer on the last for the match).

Second off were my home boy pairing of Gas and Creedy. Their opponents also both had first team experience, but an early lead was taken and improved upon to see them through to a 4&3 victory.

Third pairing up was Bromers and Foss against two juniors (Bromers thanked me for pairing him against two lads who had played every day for the last 6 weeks whilst he had played once in August!) Our boys got off to their usual slow start, but were all square at the turn - surely they?d come good as normal. To my surprise they slipped behind on the back 9 with some discord between the two of them and suffered a shock 3&1 defeat.

In match four my pair of former Maxstoke members (Stu and Harry) would surely use their local knowledge to good effect. An early 3 hole deficit was too much for the boys to claw back (that and a catalogue of errors down 17!) The end result was a 1 down defeat.

Match 5 saw scratch pairing of Gaz and Dutch also get off to a poor start (Rob struggling to find the course at times!) Gaz maintained his normal strong form and nursed Dutch round. An unlikely half up the last saw them finish all square.

The final pairing of Elliot and Dale had been given a clear instruction of 2 points each for the day from the Captain the previous day during a practice round. Both played solid, if not their best golf. This is often good enough in foursomes and so it proved for our boys as they took an early lead and extended it to a 4&3 win.

So the lunchtime result was a 3.5 to 2.5 lead. This was the first time Worcestershire had lost the foursomes, so surely we?d go on to take the match.

I put my singles order down and I was absolutely certain that we had enough strength throughout the order to secure the 6 points needed.

After 9 holes we were up in 4 matches, all square in 3 and down in 5 matches. If we could hold on to our leads and turn a couple of games to our favour we would get the match result we all wanted.

Match 1. As mentioned earlier Will had to go out first. Will's opponent had been dropped from the firsts as he hadn't won a point yet this year. Unfortunately he chose this match to get his record back on track and ran out a 4&3 winner to spoil Will?s 100% record for the seconds.

Match 2 saw Gas 3 up at the turn (he should have been more up). An out of character let up from Gas saw him lose his lead and come to 17 1 down. An interesting approach saw Gas playing his third shot from near to the 12th green! A slightly fat pitch was greeted with disgust from Gas, but just cleared the drink and ran up to stone dead! This unsettled his opponent as he duffed his chip into the water for the hole to Gas. A scruffy half in bogies meant the match was halved.

Match 3 had Creedy all square after 9. Met by a birdie barrage on the back 9 Creedy succumbed 2&1.

Match 4 saw Ryan struggling against another player on form (poor Ryan always brings out the best in his opponents in the singles!) 1 down at the turn, Ryan slipped to a 3&2 defeat. This meant we'd only got half a point from the first 4 games.

Match 5 had Foss all square at the turn and he found his form on the back 9 to record a 3&2 victory. At long last one game had turned to Warwickshire's advantage.

Match 6 was saw Harry in good form (lunchtime words of encouragement from the Captain 'you could do with speeding up a bit' ringing in his ears). Haz definitely was in a hurry and finished off his opponent 5&4.

Match 7 saw the ever reliable Elliot aiming to maintain his 100% record. Following in Harry's footsteps did him good as he replicated Haz's performance by turning a 2 up lead at the turn into a 5&4 win to give the Captain the 2 points that were demanded. 6 birdies in 8 holes will usually do the trick!

Match 8 saw an out of sorts Dale looking at his shoes most of the way round (note to Adi Riddell ? need to work on positive body language!) According to Dale he 'would be losing to an 18 handicapper' after 9 holes but was only 2 down. If he could find some form on the back 9 (easier said than done) surely he could turn his game round. Sadly Dale couldn't find his game and ran out a 2&1 loser.

Match 9 saw Dutch with a comfortable 3 up lead at the turn. This unflappable player would surely go on to record a victory, or so I thought. Coming down 17 he was all square, but pin high on Maxstoke's notoriously difficult penultimate hole meant that a simple up and down would see him back in the lead. His chip was too delicate (or slightly fluffed to put it another way!) and the putt missed. Up the 18th all square and a brilliant 6 iron second shot just found the right trap (2 yards left would have been stiff). A treacherous bunker shot was caught a little heavy and only made the fringe. The putt for the match just slipped past but ran on to 6 feet away and the return putt also missed. The 1 down result meant that we needed to win all of the last 3 games.

Match 10 was always a struggle as Bromers was also looking at his shoes for much of the round (Adi ? another candidate for body language coaching!) When I saw him on the 9th green he was putting with his wedge. The greens were 'too good' on the day and his putter had been gently lobbed off the 8th green. The 'gentle lob' saw his putter wrap around a tree some 30 yards away. If it was lobbed again it would surely come back to him as it now resembles a boomerang! The 6&5 loss was the inevitable result.

Match 11 had Stu up against it. He was 2 down at the turn, but I had faith that he would show his usual spirit and sneak the point we desperately needed. Despite a fightback Stu was 1 down coming to the 18th hole. Stu knew only a birdie would do, but proved elusive and so the match was lost.

Last man standing was the very solid Gaz. All square at the turn, Gaz showed the true Atherstone grit to win his match 2&1.

So we had lost the singles for the first time this year by the resounding score of 7.5 to 4.5 meaning the overall match score was a 10 ? 8 loss.

As always, the match had been played in great spirit, with all players staying on to watch the remaining matches coming in. My thanks to:

Maxstoke Park for their hospitality on the day and allowing us to play on their super golf course

Paul Walker for turning up to support the rest of the guys, despite being left out the team by the Captain

Graham Hayes for starting us off and supporting the team

John Duncombe (our official mascot). We will do better next time Mr Former President ? honest!

Pete Clark for making the arrangements for the day and also supporting us on the day

Darren Smith and his team for a terrific match

Finally I'd like to wish Nottinghamshire all the best in their final game against Worcestershire!!

For the full match scorecard CLICK

HERE