Sefton has nine, Wigan six, Liverpool, Wirral and St Helens five each. There’s one in West Lancashire, one in just Lancashire, and one each for three North Wales counties.

But since 2017, Knowsley has not had a representative in the Liverpool Competition.

Until now. Welcome to the Comp, Whitefield – a borough of 150,000 people are depending on you. No pressure.

It’s been a rapid rise for the club spitefully derided on social media as a “shack in the park” on their promotion last year – as though there’s a time and place for club cricket, and it’s NOT in a park where just anyone can see it.

They went from scraping a team together in 2018, to promotion into the Southport & District league’s top flight the following year under Matty Connolly. 

Covid stilled their momentum but last year, under Shahbaz Ahmed, they held off Cheshire Lines to win the league, and satisfied the Comp of their suitability for promotion.

Now comes the tricky bit – staying there.

“It’s a big thing for the whole club,” said Ahmed. 

“We don’t have much experience at this level but we will be ready for it. 

“We will be the junior side in the league but one thing is for sure, we won’t be an easy target.

“I have confidence in all my players, we played well in the lower league and I think we will here as well.”

In Harsh Shonak, Whitefield have managed to hang on to the Southport league’s highest top-flight run-scorer, despite offers from elsewhere. His 789 runs were 380 clear of the club’s next best.

Shah Afridi, who arrived for the run-in, will add some much-needed strength to the top order.

And Ahmed believes in off-spinner Ali Zubairi, leg-spinner Ben Ashcroft and paceman Idrees Afridi, he has the options needed to bowl sides out in Division Two.

The skipper added: “Our target is to stay in the league, learn from it – then next year, maybe play even better.

“We only lost three games last year, by six runs, one wicket and 11 runs, so we played well. 

“But the teams at this level will all be very tough, they all have professionals and very good players. It will be good for us to learn.”