2017 County Championship Plate Stadium. Due to changes to the County Championship format (more detail of this below) four new teams were added to the competition, with Hampshire (winners) and Staffordshire (runners up) coming up due to reaching the final of the 2016 County Championship Shield, while Warwickshire and Cumbria were also promoted by virtue of their performances in the competition during the past two seasons. The changes also meant that there were no teams relegated into the division. Leicestershire and Hampshire won their respective groups to qualify for the Twickenham final, with Leicestershire being the more impressive with three easy victories. The first
County Championship (rugby union) Westmorland, and the Furness part of Lancashire, is shown separately from Cumberland and Lancashire. "Eastern Counties" and "Notts, Lincs & Derby" have reached the final but have never won the championship. Gloucestershire are the only county to have completed a "hat-trick of tat-trick" of county titles: 1920,1921 & 1922; 1930,1931 & 1932; 1974,1975 & 1976. John Fidler, former Gloucester, Gloucestershire and England lock forward, still holds the record for the most County Championship Final appearances, nine in all, from 1971 to 1984. County Championship (rugby union) The County Championship is an annual rugby union competition in England between teams representing