Our men took on Lancashire at Reddish Vale on 7th September. Lancashire had been praying that Yorkshire would somehow lose to Durham the day before to keep their title hopes alive. But Durham were unable to do Lancashire a favour so our match at Reddish Vale turned out to be a dead rubber.
One bright spot for Lancashire was that John Carroll [Huyton & Prescott GC] was making his 100th appearance for the Red Rose county. A fabulous milestone for a true Lancashire stalwart
Several of our young players have made their debuts in the men’s team this year and Ellis Courtnell [Ringway] made his league debut alongside veteran Dom Barnes in the foursomes.
It didn’t take Lancashire long to establish leads in four of the matches. In the top match Jamie van Wyk, England international and winner of the Welsh Open Amateur this year, along with George Holland, were several under par in beating Jon Beesley and Cole Self 4&3. We’d lost our first three matches when play was suspended due to lightning and torrential rain. Play did not resume until 2.30, and by the time Lancashire had wrapped up the final foursomes matches there was insufficient time to complete the singles by the cut-off time of 7.30pm in the league rules.
So the singles were abandoned and a 12-6 win for Lancashire was posted.
Lancashire have the English Men’s County Finals at St Enodoc to look forward to later this month. For Cheshire this was a disappointing end to a season where we never really got into gear after good performances in recent years. The emergence of genuinely talented players from the Boys team is, however, a cause for real optimism in 2026
Copy: Cheshire Golf
Team pic: Geoff Garnett, others Cheshire Golf
