ESSEX U175/U180 TEAM
The BCF County Championship competitions were given a new lease of life by the decision to replace the old second and third teams competitions by grading limited events with effect from the 1992/3 season. Essex have participated in the U175 competition since it was instituted, initially under the captaincy of David Smith and subsequently under Stuart Bates and John Philpott. In the early years, the County found it relatively difficult to qualify for the National Stages of the competition, although it succeeded in going through as SCCU runners-up in 1993/4 and 1994/5 and on the latter occasion gave a hint of future greatness by reaching the final. However, starting from 1996/7, the team has enjoyed an almost unbroken record of success, completing a simultaneous hat-trick of SCCU and BCF titles, and going on to make it six SCCU titles in a row by February 2002. When the long unbeaten run was finally ended by Yorkshire in the BCF semi-final in June 2000 it had reached 29 matches. In 2001 the team reached the final again only to lose to Warwickshire, but the title was regained in July 2002 with a board count victory over Sussex. After a relatively disapponting 2002/3 season, both the SCCU and BCF titles were regained in 2003/4, and the SCCU title retained the following three seasons. These pages provide a record of these achievements and information on the team.
At the end of the 2006/7 season I announced that I was standing down as captain. However, in the absence of a volunteer, I ended up organising the team for 2007/8 season gets under way and nearly had a dream finish as the team reach the final, but a seemingly unassailable position was thrown away in the last half hour of play. David Brock took over as captain for 2008/9, and made an excellent start.
For the 2009/10 season, the rebased grades meant that the U175 championship evolved into the U180 championship.