Prior to the match, David Morgan had instructed me to ensure there was plenty of 'blue and gold' on the leaderboard and the foursomes duly obliged. Home pairing of Chris and Charlie Staite led us off in an ideal way, running in 4&3 winners. This was quickly followed by Sam Foster and Stu Bloxham's 3&2 victory and Chris Freeman and Rob Holland's 3&1 victory.

Harry and Nicky fought all the way to the last - the notoriously difficult par 3 of over 240 yards which was playing into the cool breeze on the day. A remarkable up and down from the Warwickshire pair was matched by their opponents which meant their match was halved.

In the final match Ryan Greenwood and myself were looking good a dormie 2 up. Sadly we were unable to match the two closing pars from the Leicestershire pairing and so our match was also halved.

That meant the foursomes were won by a satisfying four points to one.

The afternoon singles got off to a bit of a shaky start as both Sam and Charlie were defeated by some good play from their opponents. Those two lost points were quickly matched by strong victories for the two Chris's (Freemo and Staite). A birdie, birdie finish for Ryan saw him halve his game, a result matched by Harry.

Nicky Jenkins received some very sad news (the death of a family member) whilst on the course. To his credit he carried on playing, but his concentration was clearly affected and he made an understandably quick exit from the club when he lost his game. Events like this make you realise that there are some things more important than playing golf.

On a brighter note Stu and Dutch (Rob Holland) secured victories, which only left me on the course. A mixture of 4 birdies and 4 bogies meant I came to the 17th dormie 2 up and hoping that I would not repeat the morning's loss of the closing 2 holes. My approach to 17 came up some 5 yards short of the green and my opponent was some 20 feet from the hole. Remembering the short game coaching from a few weeks earlier I nipped my chip off the turf and watched it roll into the hole to win my match.

The singles were therefore won by six points to four making the overall match result a 10 point to 5 win for Warwickshire.

As always, I'd like to thank my team for their fantastic spirit, Harborne GC for their wonderful hospitality on the day, Jim Longstaff and his Leicestershire team for playing the match in a truly friendly way and, (Graham Hayes and Matt Nixon) for starting us off and supporting us on the day and, finally, John Duncombe for his support (even if he did need to take a power nap as the afternoon singles were starting!)

For the Match card CLICK HERE

For a gallery of player pictures CLICK HERE