Young to the fore

From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Saturday 21st Jan 2006.

WILTSHIRE are leaving no stone unturned in their bid for success at this summer's South Western Counties Championships Week at Minchinhampton.

New skipper Jonathan James, from Wrag Barn, has named a 15-strong squad from which 10 will be selected to accompany him to the six-county meeting at the Gloucestershire club from June 11-16.

The squad includes no fewer than 10 teenagers, but it doesn't lack for experience.

Ben Loughrey, 17, from Wrag Barn, is the only member of the squad who hasn't played for the full county team.

Loughrey is the elder son of Wrag Barn professional Barry and his county player wife Gill. He is in the first of a two-year golf diploma course at Hartpury College, Gloucester-shire, and has a handicap of scratch.

He has made a full recovery from the injuries he sustained in a serious car accident on his way home from a match at St Pierre last October.

Said father Barry: "He's back out on the golf course now and looking forward to the new season. He had a round of 65, five under par, at Puckrup Hall this week."

Loughrey is one of two Wrag Barn players in the squad, the other being Wiltshire junior champion Richard Scarrott.

Scarrott, 18, has been a county player since 2003 and, when given his first taste of Counties Week golf by James's predecessor Mike White (West Wilts) at Saunton last summer, grasped it with both hands, notching up 51/2 points out of eight as Wiltshire, the defending champions, finished fourth to Gloucestershire in the five-day round robin match-play championship with two wins.

James has included four Broome Manor players in the squad and one from Ogbourne Downs.

The Manor's quartet are the Mackman brothers West of England matchplay champion Miles and Damien Chris Moore and Tom Ruddle.

Ogbourne's representative is county champion Ben Newman, 17.

The Cumberwell Park club at Bradford-on-Avon supply five of the 15 in county vice-captain Alistair James, colts' champion Ashley Monaghan, Tom Burley, Andy Cooper and England boys' squad member Matt Swales.

Swales, a 17-year-old scratch player, made his county debut in 2003. Last year, he won the Wiltshire Boys' Championship for the David Howell Trophy and teamed up with club-mate James to win the Wiltshire Foursomes Championship.

The South Wilts pair of Sam Elkins and John Haugh and Mark Searle, the reigning South Western Counties champion from High Post, complete the squad.

Searle won the South Western title by four at Saunton last year with a 36-hole total of two under par 140, but despite his sterling effort Wiltshire could only manage third place in the stroke-play championship, which bisects the match-play and which Wiltshire have yet to win, with a six-player score of 916, 30 behind winners Devon.

James would dearly love to lead Wiltshire to victory in the stroke -play and represent the six counties of the South West in the English County Finals for the first time at Princes in October.

James, who succeeded White as captain last month, is a Swindon-based independent financial adviser and the first member of the Wrag Barn club to hold the office.

He is organising a "get-together" for the squad at Minchinhampton next month and a county trial at Cumberwell Park on Sunday, March 26.

The county kick off their inter-county season with the first of their six Daily Telegraph Channel League fixtures against Glamorgan at Wrag Barn on Sunday, April 9. They have another league match, against Cornwall at North Wilts on Sunday, May 7, before the Counties Week action begins on Sunday, June 11.

Wiltshire, Channel champions for the first time in 2000 and fourth to Somerset last season, resume their league campaign on Sunday, June 25 with the match against Gloucestershire at Tidworth. They play holders Somerset at Saltford on Sunday, July 9, Devon at Yelverton on Sunday, August 13 and Gwent at Newport on Sunday, August 27.

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