Nine counties qualified for the annual Eastern Counties Foursomes and, after two days of competition, Essex finished second behind hosts Lincolnshire.

There was a particularly outstanding performance by the pairing of Orsett's Steve McAnally and Andrew Fells (Canons Brook).

They won 6.5 of their eight matches, falling only to Suffolk. It was particularly pleasing to see Fells realising some of his early promise from when he was Essex Boys' champion on two occasions and qualified for the Brtish Open once.

County captain Simon Larner and Danny Heard (Wanstead) also provided six wins. Nick Tidder (Romford) with Craig Housden (Channels) plus Tommy Hunter (Ilford) with Justin Brown (Gosfield) each won four matches out of eight.

A disappointing one-and-a-half wins out of eight for James Parker (Boyce Hill) and Graham Guthrie (Benton Hall) saw Essex fall two-and-a-half wins short of Lincolnshire.

Team manager John Dawson said: "This was a very good result. We finished second only two-and-a-half points behind the hosts, improving on last year's fourth place."

Published Friday, May 30, 2003

Brought to you by the Evening Echo