Andy Murray is yet to stretch himself to a welcoming gift for the press. But then again, this is County Week, where the tennis is chaste, the camaraderie never wanes and the present of a haggis (“the versatile Scottish dish”) from Ian Conway, the North of Scotland captain, was accepted for what it was - a simple gesture in a week of simple gestures.

The world No 9 never enjoyed the pleasures of this - “neither did we ask him to play,” Conway said - although his brother, Jamie, excelled in it before his thoughts turned to mixed doubles glory at Wimbledon. He helped to guide his county team into Group One in 2006, from where they were relegated last year and returned again this summer in full name-emblazoned-on-shirt, initials-on-shorts order.

That may be “County Week meets the 21st century”, but in the 114th edition of an exceedingly British tournament, these things matter.

It costs the LTA £120,000 to stage the Summer County Cup, to give its rightful title, and if the players bounding across the courts of Eastbourne, Cromer, West Worthing and Ilkley - four of the week's 13 venues - are not exactly household names, their exploits presage a more decent era of representing one's county without thinking that you will get paid for the privilege.

We gather annually, two weeks after Wimbledon, at Devonshire Park in Eastbourne to try to watch Group One tennis on 18 courts simultaneously - County Week is doubles only, no umpires, players calling their own lines - and marvel at the dextrous brilliance of much of it. As with all such occasions, time is spent mourning old friends - Geoff Paish, a former Great Britain Davis Cup player and Surrey stalwart, had been here as long as the pier and passed away three months ago - but the real magnet is honest to goodness throwback amateur sport.

Where would one rather be, sitting in an American courtroom as men's professional tennis is picked apart by lawyers, its skulduggery laid bare, or on a deckchair in the sunshine of the Sussex Riviera, watching the kind of volleying you do not see on the professional tour much any more - and not just the occasional deft touch but one after another?

There may not be an ATP after all the costs are counted in Delaware, but there will always be a County Week.

The scoring system is a bit of a blur and that is part of the fun. Each of the six counties consisting of three doubles pairs play the others once across a five-day span, three matches a day with nine rubbers in each match. If the teams cannot be separated by a number of victories, the countback begins with rubbers, sets, then games coming into the equation. Every fluffed forehand can be crucial.

The president, chief executive and player director of the LTA were roaming the courts of Eastbourne yesterday, so the event can hardly be written off as frippery. Try telling that to the players - who often pause mid-match to scream “C'mon, Lancs, Herts, Chesh [fill in your own county]” when a winning shot is played a couple of courts away.

As of the end of the third day, the men's Group One title rests, to all intents and purposes, between Hertfordshire and Lancashire, while Kent, the champions, have had a less than flourishing time of it. Warwickshire, led by the indefatigable Katie Shaw (née Rickett) are the pick of the women's top crop.

In Toronto, Andy and Jamie Murray are playing doubles in the hard-court Masters Series event, by means of warming up for their assault on Olympic gold in Beijing. Back home, their fellow Scots are doing their bit to keep the country at the forefront of the sport here, to the extent of using a machine morning and night that offers what can best be described as non-invasive acupuncture.

Colin Fleming, an old friend of the Murrays leading North of Scotland's attempt to preserve their Group One status, swears by its value to the extent that he and his partner, Jonathon Pankhurst, have won all nine rubbers so far and he intends to take it with him when he re-embarks next week on his professional career. Who said County Week is old hat?