Editor: County Championship

I've already posted this in the editor's hideaway, but no-one goes in there it seems (ok, its not been there long, but other threads show the same trend), so I'm posting it here to hopefully get some more replies and achieve an overall better final product

This is the simplest of my 3 ongoing projects at the moment, so I decided I'd do it first. I've seen a few of these started but not finished so I thought I'd have a go.

I've put in 37 counties of England, 9 Counties of Wales, 4 Counties of Scotland and 4 Provinces of Ireland in, making 54 teams and 3 divisions of 18.

Divisions look as follows:

Team name (Stadium in brackets)

Division 1

Berkshire (Madejski Stadium, Reading)

Derbyshire (Pride Park, Derby)

Devon (Home Park, Plymouth)

Essex (Upton Park, London)

Glamorgan (Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff)

Kent (Priestfield, Gillingham)

Lanarkshire (Celtic Park, Glasgow)

Lancashire (Old Trafford, Manchester)

Leicestershire (Walkers Stadium, Leicester)

Leinster (Lansdowne Road, Dublin)

Middlesex (Emirates Stadium, London)

Midlothian (Tynecastle, Edinburgh)

Nottinghamshire (City Ground, Nottingham)

Staffordshire (Britannia Stadium, Stoke-on-Trent)

Surrey (The Den, London)

Sussex (Broadfield Stadium, Crawley (Move to Falmer at start of 3rd season))

Warwickshire (Villa Park, Birmingham)

Yorkshire (Elland Road, Leeds)

Division 2

Bedfordshire (Kenilworth Road, Luton)

Buckinghamshire (Adams Park, High Wycombe)

Cambridgeshire (London Road, Peterborough)

Carmarthenshire (Liberty Stadium, Swansea)

Cheshire (Edgeley Park, Stockport)

Denbighshire (Belle Vue, Rhyl)

Dorset (Dean Court, Bournemouth)

Durham (Darlington Arena, Darlington)

Gloucestershire (Ashton Gate, Bristol)

Hampshire (St. Mary's Stadium, Southampton)

Hertfordshire (Vicarage Road, Watford)

Lincolnshire (Sincil Bank, Lincoln)

Norfolk (Carrow Road, Norwich)

Northamptonshire (Sixfields, Northampton)

Northumberland (St. James' Park, Newcastle)

Oxfordshire (Kassam Stadium, Oxford)

Perthshire (Tannadice Park, Dundee)

Ulster (Windsor Park, Belfast)

Division 3

Ceredigion (Park Avenue, Aberystwyth)

Connacht (Terryland Park, Galway)

Conwy (Llanelian Road, Colwyn Bay)

Cornwall (Treyew Road, Truro)

Cumbria (Brunton Park, Carlisle)

Flintshire (Deva Stadium, Chester)

Gwynedd (Farrar Road, Bangor)

Herefordshire (Edgar Street, Hereford)

Highlands (Caledonian Park, Inverness)

Munster (Turner's Cross, Cork)

Pembrokeshire (Bridge Meadow Stadium, Haverfordwest)

Powys (Park Hall, Oswestry)

Rutland (Tod's Piece, Uppingham)

Shropshire (New Meadow, Shrewsbury)

Somerset (Huish Park, Yeovil)

Suffolk (Portman Road, Ipswich)

Wiltshire (County Ground, Swindon)

Worcestershire (Aggborough, Kidderminster)

Not sure yet what will happen with regards to players. I might fill the teams with world stars, with players currently based in England, or just leave them blank for the game to generate squads.

I'll be putting in kits, rivalries etc. too, and any input from anyone else with regard to their own county or just the project in general would be most helpful

Why not fill the teams with players born in that county or currently playing for a team in that county, maybe taking the best from each team?

Why not fill the teams with players born in that county or currently playing for a team in that county, maybe taking the best from each team?

I might just do that actually. It does mean that some(Rutland for example) will end up with hardly any players though.

I'll release an initial version with empty squads, and then maybe look at filling squads afterwards.

ok, slight change to the OP, Cambridgeshire will now play at Abbey Stadium, Cambridge, so that Rutland can play at London Road, Peterborough beacuse Uppingham Town's ground which I had planned to use is not in the db, and there is no other Rutland stadium in the db, so I'll use Peterborough in North Cambs.

Fabulous idea!

As a quiz geek I'm not sure about your choice of counties though. Feels like Wales is oversubscribed and Scotland undersubscribed; certainly for Scotland I'dve thought you'd be better off using the 1974-1996 county areas and thus having Strathclyde (Glasgow), Lothians (Edinburgh), Tayside (Dundee), Grampian (Aberdeen), Highland (Inverness), plus maybe Fife (Kirkcaldy/Cowdenbeath) and Central (Falkirk/Stirling). Similarly for Wales you'd have Gwent (Newport), Glamorgan (Cardiff), Dyfed (at a push, Swansea) and Clwyd (Wrexham) plus maybe Powys (Oswestry) and Gwynedd.

As for England, I suppose as someone from Gloucestershire I should object to Ashton Gate (which, as it's south of the river, is actually in Somerset!) and point out that the best ground in Worcestershire is actually Aggborough.

Fabulous idea!

As a quiz geek I'm not sure about your choice of counties though. Feels like Wales is oversubscribed and Scotland undersubscribed; certainly for Scotland I'dve thought you'd be better off using the 1974-1996 county areas and thus having Strathclyde (Glasgow), Lothians (Edinburgh), Tayside (Dundee), Grampian (Aberdeen), Highland (Inverness), plus maybe Fife (Kirkcaldy/Cowdenbeath) and Central (Falkirk/Stirling). Similarly for Wales you'd have Gwent (Newport), Glamorgan (Cardiff), Dyfed (at a push, Swansea) and Clwyd (Wrexham) plus maybe Powys (Oswestry) and Gwynedd.

As for England, I suppose as someone from Gloucestershire I should object to Ashton Gate (which, as it's south of the river, is actually in Somerset!) and point out that the best ground in Worcestershire is actually Aggborough.

The map I used to set out the counties is here - http://www.itraveluk.co.uk/maps/england/ - which seems to set Gloucs as a large area all sides of Bristol, with Somerset not starting until the WSM/Bridgwater area.

I can see the problem in Scotland, and I can't decide what to do with Ireland. It seems a little too rugby like (and I hate rugby) with the provinces, but If I use the counties there would be far too many, and I'm not sure if they all have a registered stadium.

I might keep this for an initial version and then look at alternative counties for a second version.

I'm now looking at doing rivalries and kits. Some rivalries (Lancs/Yorks, (Essex/Middx) are obvious, but I thought I'd give each County a rivalry with every county bordering it, with one (or maybe two for some) as fierce rivals.

Sounds worth a try when it is up and running, will be good to have Ulster winning everything!

Northamptonshire may be better of at the rugby stadium Franklin's Gardens as it is bigger than Sixfields and Nene Park Placed on top of each other. It won't be in the game but all the info you need is on here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_Gardens.

But a really good idea, You'd leave me with a problem of who to support, Brought up in Herts living in Beds. Wait Bedfordshire play at the Kenny. C'mon you Herts!!!

Northamptonshire may be better of at the rugby stadium Franklin's Gardens as it is bigger than Sixfields and Nene Park Placed on top of each other. It won't be in the game but all the info you need is on here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_Gardens.

But a really good idea, You'd leave me with a problem of who to support, Brought up in Herts living in Beds. Wait Bedfordshire play at the Kenny. C'mon you Herts!!!

As I said about Murrayfield in the other thread (in the editor's section), I'd rather stick to football grounds. I'd imagine that a few rugby grounds (Millennium Stadium in cardiff for example) will be bigger than Football Grounds in the same town, but its a football competition at the end of the day, and as this is England, we're not exactly short of football grounds.

I assume that most teams will get new grounds reasonably quickly anyway if they're too small (i.e Kent in Div 1 at Priestfield), so grounds don't worry me too much really.

I'm going to put players in based at local clubs, so I make that:

Bedfordshire - Luton, MK Dons

Berkshire - Reading

Buckinghamshire - Wycombe, MK Dons

Cambridgeshire - Cambridge, Histon, Peterborough

Ceredigion - Aberystwyth

Cheshire - Stockport, Crewe, Tranmere

Connacht - Galway

Conwy - Colwyn Bay

Cornwall - Truro

Cumbria - Carlisle, Workington

Denbighshire - Rhyl

Derbyshire - Derby, Chesterfield

Devon - Plymouth, Torquay, Exeter

Dorset - Bournemouth

Durham - Darlington, Hartlepool

Essex - West Ham, Southend, Colchester

Flintshire - Chester, Wrexham

Glamorgan - Cardiff, Newport

Gloucestershire - Bristol City, Bristol Rovers, Cheltenham

Gwynedd - Bangor

Hampshire - Southampton, Portsmouth

Herefordshire - Hereford

Hertfordshire - Watford, St. Albans

Highlands - Inverness

Kent - Gillingham, Charlton

Lanarkshire - Celtic, Rangers, Motherwell

Lancashire - Man Utd, Man City, Preston, Blackpool, Oldham, Bury, Rochdale, Liverpool, Everton

Leicestershire - Leicester

Leinster - St. Pat's Athletic, Shamrock Rovers

Lincolnshire - Lincoln, Boston, Scunthorpe, Grimsby

Middlesex - Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea

Midlothian - Hearts, Hibs

Munster - Cork City

Norfolk - Norwich

Northamptonshire - Northampton, Rushden

Northumberland - Newcastle, Sunderland

Nottinghamshire - Nottm Forest, Notts County, Mansfield

Oxfordshire - Oxford

Pembrokeshire - Haverfordwest County (+ some reserves from Cardiff and Swansea)

Perthshire - Dundee, Dundee Utd

Powys - TNS

Rutland - Leicester, Peterborough

Shropshire - Shrewsbury, AFC Telford

Somerset - Yeovil, Weston-super-Mare

Staffordshire - Stoke, Port Vale

Suffolk - Ipswich

Surrey - Millwall, Crystal Palace

Sussex - Crawley, Brighton

Ulster - Linfield, Cliftonville

Warwickshire - Birmingham, Aston Villa

Wiltshire - Swindon, Salisbury

Worcestershire - Worcester, Kidderminster

Yorkshire - Leeds, Sheff Utd, Sheff Wed, Huddersfield, York, Hull

If you can help shift any clubs around, or add new ones, please post the problems

Once teams are set up, we have two options about the divisions

- Keep them as they are, and have unbalanced divisions for a few seasons, with some pretty rubbish teams in Div 1

- Order them on Average CA and change the divisions so it is more balanced

I imagine Lancashire (Man U, Man C, Liverpool) and Middlesex (Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs) will be the strongest sides. Lancs strike force of Rooney and Torres with Tevez on the bench already scares me, and Middx's midfield of Fabregas, Arshavin, Essien, Modric etc. doesn't look too shabby either!

Squads now complete for Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, Lancashire and Middlesex

It would be a major help if someone who knows a bit more about Scottish, Welsh and Irish football can do those squad lists while I do the English ones. If there's no takers, I'll do them all, but it'll delay it a bit.