Strathmore and Perthshire Cricket Union Handbook 2011

32 A Short History of the Two Counties Cup At the Union’s AGM held at Jarman’s Hotel, Forfar on Saturday 5th November 1955, the Secretary, Bob Laing of Brechin raised the possibility of a knock-out competition for Second Division sides to be held in 1956. He intimated that a cup had been promised by an anonymous donor. The meeting agreed that is was a good idea and authorised the committee to proceed with a competition open to the current member of the Second Division. At the next committee meeting on 1st December, Forthill A was admitted to the draw and it was decided that the competition would be called the Two Counties Cup. The cup was displayed to the committee at a subsequent meeting in May 1956. In that first year, there were a total of 8 teams in the draw with Meigle XI emerging victorious. The matches were played under the same conditions as the Three Counties Cup, 25 overs a side with no restriction on bowlers. These rules had been in force since the 1951 season following problems with the original ‘time’ rules. The competition expanded the following season through the admittance to membership of Errol and NCR while CouparAngus also applied to play in the cup. In their initial foray into competitive cricket, NCR performed the League and Cup double. 1959 saw the return of Kirriemuir to Union competition for the first time since 1936. It was to be another three years before they felt confident enough to rejoin the league. At the 1963AGM, the first proposal to restrict players from a higher standard playing the Two Counties Cup was proposed. The suggestion was that players who had played in a Three Counties Cup tie would not be eligible to play. The matter was remitted to the Committee for a final decision and the rule was adopted for the 1964 season. It would not be the last time this subject came up! In 1967, Montrose CC proposed imposing a limit of seven overs per bowler in both the Three and Two Counties Cups. This was adopted for the 1968 season and remained in force until the competitions were converted to T20 in 2004. The fifteen yard run-up restriction was introduced in 1973 and remains in force while the count- back method of deciding tied matches was introduced following a plethora of replays during the 1985 season. Over the years, various attempts have been made to restrict the Two Counties Cup to players from a similar standard. The 1964 rule has been extended at various times to stop County and now SNCL players participating in the hope of providing more of a level playing field for clubs who do not have teams playing at the higher levels of the game. Finally, for the current season, fielding circles are being implemented along with a Bowl-out to decide in the event of rain-ruined matches. A full list of winners and losing finalists appeared in the 2009 Handbook while an analysis of teams reaching the final appears on Page 49 of the current issue.