FIVE winners of major Halifax, Huddersfield Union championships are in the 12-man team to represent the Union in the first leg of the annual match with St Annes Old Links club on the Fylde coast on April 26.
Richard Holt (Woodsome Hall), Chris Ingham (West End), Andy Whitworth (Bradley Hall), Paul Taylor (Bradley Hall) and Mark England (Huddersfield) join Graham McLean (Meltham), Jim Fairhurst (Huddersfield), Chris Mear (Meltham), Frank Greaves (West End), Neil Williams (Huddersfield), Ian Powell (Hebden Bridge) and Andy Shaw (Huddersfield) in a line-up that features foursomes and fourball matches.
Union executive member Roger Cliffe is confident the side he has selected will maintain the run of success the Union have enjoyed in the meetings with the Lancashire club, which are based as much on the friendly long-running link between the two rather than any competitive element.
The return leg is at Meltham on September 10.
Clear-cut victories in two pre-competitive season matches against Derbyshire and Lincolnshire have whetted county captain Andy King’s appetite to get at their rivals in the Northern Counties League which gets under way next month.
Lancashire won everything in sight last season, claiming the League and Northern Group titles which Yorkshire, who experienced their poorest season in years, had looked on as virtually their own property.
Yorkshire have fully rotated their squad in the two warm-up matches, giving King and the selectors opportunity to run the rule over everyone, and wins by 11-7 against Derbyshire on the latter’s own soil and by 12-6 against Lincolnshire at Selby served as boosts after the disappointments of last season.
Durham provide the opposition for Yorkshire’s opening League match on May 9 then next up comes Lancashire at the testing links of West Lancs, north of Liverpool, and the Red Rose men again are expected to present a tough proposition.
By then, King needs to have come up with some successful foursomes pairings. The foursomes, a chink in Yorkshire’s armour too often in recent years, were lost against Derbyshire and halved against Lincolnshire.
