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 Shield divided roughly on geographic terms into two pools and play each other once either home or away, with the top teams in each pool progressing to the final. There is no formal promotion and relegation between the County Championship Shield and the higher competition for the County Championship (Bill Beaumont Cup) and County Championship Plate but Surrey moved up into the higher competition from the 2014-15 season after winning the Shield three times in succession and the 2014-15 champions, Leicestershire, have moved up to County Championship Plate level from the 2015-16 season. 2011_results.pdf County Championship Shield The County Championship Shield