Starting us off with the foursomes was our regular openers of Sam Dodds and Rob Browning getting us off to a flier with a solid 2&1 win.

Our new amateur champion Tom Ibbertson partnered Jamie Carney (Jamie back playing county golf following a short break) going into this match Tom & Jamie had never lost playing together for the junior team, unfortunately Tom spoke to soon as they were beaten 2&1 after coming up against one of the Notts best players in matchplay golf.

As captain I do get the privilege of picking a good partner and I certainly did this with Chris Dougil as he did not miss a putt all morning, one after the other they kept hitting the centre of the hole, all at a good pace so thankfully I did not have any returns to knock in, this along with solid tee to green golf gave us an early lunch winning 4&3

A tried and tested pairing of Steve Creed and Richard Oddy fought all the way and played some good golf, this sadly was not good enough in their match and they finished 2 down

Last out was the inform Elliott Forbes with Ryan Wallace, this is a very good young pairing one I can see being part of the team for some years to come, again though despite a close game they came out on the wrong end of a 2&1 result

This closed the morning for us 2 to 3 down, again for Warwickshire we struggle in the morning session, with the pairings and our superior knowledge of Harborne I felt this result should have been at least reversed, it seems that year after year we cannot crack the foursomes, I shall have to give some serious thought to why this is as when you see the final result it is so important to get off to a good start by going into lunch at least one point up

So all the team knew what was needed and

I really felt we would turn the scores around, first out was Rob who lost out 2&1 this was quickly evened out though as Sam Dodds got a valuable 3&1 win,

Chris had one of the hardest matches against a player who once went 30 odd games unbeaten and he could be on another run as he beat Chris 4&3.

Tom had some revenge for his morning defeat winning 3&2 (also playing remarkably quickly as playing behind Tom I could not keep up)

I had a comfortable win of 6&5 playing bogey free but also coming across someone not quite in form

Jamie's first match at senior level can't get much better than this as he stormed to a 8&7 win, welcome back Jamie hopefully the start of a long spell back in top flight golf

A surprise result from Warwickshire matchplay champ Elliott he had in his words 'an embarrassing result' loosing 6&5, just a blip I'm sure as Elliott has been in great form and I am sure we will see some good results the rest of the season

The scores on the doors now had us tied 6 all, I was now thinking we could just about steal this one as the reports from the final three games looked fairly good for us, up in two and down in one. Once

I had spoken to the last three I tried to keep a low profile not to add pressure on an already tense situation, as the captain it is painful to watch victory slip away but I know only too well not as painful as being the player involved.

Richard Oddy 1up going onto the very difficult last hole watched his put slide by to see his hard work undone to finish with a hard fought halved match, Richard not being rewarded for the very good golf he played for the previous 17 holes

Two game left and we needed points, Ryan played out a carbon copy of the previous match as one up playing 18 but failing to make par had to settle for a half point

Finally Steve Creed could not find his usual form that gives him so many wins closing the days play with a 2&1 loss

Final result was a very close but still a 7-8 defeat, I know all involved tried their best throughout the day and will turn this around with the rest of the league games so let's move on and make sure we win our next four games

Thank you John Powell for the support all day and updates of matches, also Matt Nixon for starting both AM & PM. Pete Clarke for organising the menu much needed following a busy day on the course. Harborne was as usual these days in superb condition, you would be hard pressed to get better greens in the Midland area and the hospitality shown to both sides was first class, thank you to the Harborne members for the use of your course

Full Results

R Browning & S Dodds won 2&1 M Hadfield & M Willgoose

T Ibbertson & J Carney Lost 2&1 R Overton & B Smith

D Westwood & C Dougil won 4&3 D Reddington & D Reddington

S Creed & R Oddy lost 2 down A Hull & W Minchin

E Forbes & R Wallace lost 2&1

Foursomes Result 2-3 to Nottinghamshire

R Browning lost 2&1 M Hadfield

S Dodds won 3&1 M Willgoose

C Dougill lost 4&3 R Overton

T Ibbertson won 3&2 B Smith

D Westwood won 6&5 D Reddington

J Carney won 8&7 D Reddington

E Forbes lost 6&5 A Hull

R Oddy halved W Minchin

R Wallace halved M Newton

S Creed lost 2&1 B Hall

Final result 7-8 win for Nottinghamshire