I had the great pleasure of attending the Counties at the weekend and albeit somewhat partisan (son was bowling for team) I have to say that I was really proud to be from Lancashire.

The team was a credit to the county, Trev was on the lanes in amongst the guys all the time and made some pretty tough calls on keeping with the same line up. We were the noisest (I heard a number of complaints) and from what I saw of the day the most fired up team. Chris' first ever 300 (top man) raised the roof and the whole team buzzed with 1212 (that's a 242 average game across the team).

You know when you look back at why things didn't quite go to plan well the scales were tipped against us from the start:
. The hotel we stayed in witnessed a 12:45 fire alarm being set off by 3 guys in a room that created loads of noise and bagging on walls etc till 3AM next door to one of the team
. Aussie had to work Saturday night so he and Richard drove down at 1AM, so had hardly any sleep
. Lancashire men, there first for registration, were greeted by the news that they had the first bye, and the practice lanes bore little resemblence in oil pattern to what they subsequently played their first game on
. That first game really cost us more than they could have ever guessed given Warwickshire who pipped us, did make the last three
. Peterborough (who won easily, winning just about all their matches) scraped a 4 pin victory over us, last frame stuff
. Bedfordshire, our last game where the home team and we played them last, again last frame stuff.

In fact the majority of the games were down to the wire, and it made for a nail biting finish, as Lancashire gradually throughout the day their way into the top 3 from last place.

Well you can tell that my personal view was that the lads should have been in the finals and would have given any team a real game.

My whole family and I'm sure Kevin's father were somewhat struggling to speak by the end as we had shouted so much.

Thanks guys.