The draw for the 2017 Corinthian Cup has certainly caused a surprise in one East Devon household.

Brian Cann, a resident of Dunkeswell and playing his cricket for a second successive season at Seaton, will have more reason than anyone else to look forward to his club’s group stage matches for Seaton have been drawn I the same group as Honiton and Feniton.

They are the two clubs that Cann, who has been playing cricket for the past 42 years, spent all but two seasons playing for!

He says: “I have had friends asking me if I was present at the draw and had arranged it!”

With the format this year being one of a group stage of three teams meeting each other on a single day to provide a full day of limited over ‘crash bang wallop’ cricket, with ‘hosting clubs’ running things on the match day.

For Cann it means a very real trip down memory way, something he explained saying: “From the age of nine when I first started playing, I was a Honiton CC lad and went on to skipper the club during a fabulously successful period I the 1990s. At the end of that decade I moved on to Feniton where I spent a wonderful period of 16 years until, a switch to Seaton two years ago. I might add that I am so happy to be where I am now, Seaton CC has been so welcoming and I feel very much at ‘home’ in a cricketing sense. However, my original roots are steeped in all things Honiton CC and to see both my former clubs in the same group draw as Seaton is – well a cricketing dream come true.”

The dates for group stage matches are yet to be finalised.

The full draw for the Corinthian Cup was: Group 1 – Alphington, Dartington and Totnes and Shaldon; Group 2 – Abbotskerswell, Babbacombe and Stoke Gabriel; Group 3 – Ipplepen, Tavistock and Shobrooke Park; Group 4 – Cullompton, Kentisbeare and Uplyme and Lyme Regis; Group 5 - Feniton, Honiton and Seaton and Group 6 – Ottery St Mary, Topsham St James and Upottery.