YORK RI Bowling Club players are getting set for the toughest game of their lives - against an England representative side.

The York Amateur Bowling Association division one outfit will face a side put together by the president of the English Bowling Association, John Austin.

That visiting team, though not yet named, will include association officials and, notably, a number of England internationals.

The match - a 24-a-side contest - is all part of the RI club's 65th anniversary, combined with Millennium celebrations.

It was organised by RI's assistant secretary, Alan Price, a former Yorkshire County Bowling Association president, who knows Austin well, having gone on an EBA bowls-fostering tour to California earlier this year.

Price has presented the White Rose Trophy to the under-25s two-rink county champions at the national bowls championships every year since the trophy's inception during his term as Yorkshire president in 1993.

It was while he was at these Worthing-based championships finals last year that the idea for this challenge match came about.

And now, following a formal application by RI, the EBA have agreed to send a team.

Price said: "There were about 390 clubs who applied for games (against the EBA), of which we were one of the successful candidates to get to play them.

"I wrote a letter to them last August, and it's a great honour to have them agree to play against us."

The match, to be played on Thursday, August 10, at RI's ground in Falconer Street, Acomb, will be sponsored by John Smith's Brewery and Carlton Tavern in Acomb.