ECF Online County Championship Mx Group Stage Matches 13th June

3 days to go!

Mx's online county campaign is shortly due to get underway. 

The first round of group matches will start at 6:30pm on 13th June.

The draws of each group for the respective Mx teams are:

The first set of matches seem to favour Mx.

Taking each draw in turn

Mx A: Mx have never played the combined Cheshire & North Wales in OTB play so Mx A not only play a new entity but one of unknown quantity.

Mx B: Mx B also face a county no Mx team has ever faced Derbyshire. Many would say this could be a mismatch a 2nd team taking on a first but the history of the BCF's Minor Counties Competition (1973-81) gives insight into matches of this sort. When the competition was introduced in 1973 it was designed to accommodate "strong" counties 2nd teams and "weak" counties 1st teams. Throughout the aforementioned period there was only one occasion when the competition was won by a "weak" counties 1st team in 1981 when Buckinghamshire lifted the title. Due to the consistent success of 2nd teams, much to the embarrassment of 1st teams, the competition was split so from 1981-82 the BCF ran 3 competitions, 1st (Open), Minor and 2nd team. The SCCU's 2nd Division (Montague Jones Trophy) from 1972-1992 also supports the successes of 2nd teams as for the 20years or so of the division was only won 3 times by 1st teams! Mx B will be channelling the spirits of 2nd teams of old to win their division.

Mx u1825: Mx u1825 face a familiar foe in Surrey. The two counties are no strangers to each other as they meet annually in u160/u140/u120 divisions in SCCU competition. This combined format will be interesting as it has been sometime since they have had to play in this format, the last time being when the SCCU's 3rd and 4th divisions were combined between 1983-92 before the introduction of grading bands.

Full match report of each of Mx's matches to come.