There are some things about Devonshire Park that remain untouched by the ravages of time; the façade of the Winter Gardens, the back entrance to The Buccaneer pub, the ice-cream kiosk doing a rapid trade and the staging of Group One of County Week or, to give it its full title, the AEGON Summer County Cup. It is splendidly sedate and reassuring. Then there was yesterday, when County Week became Andy Murray Day.

At 11am, from a ridiculously small car, stepped the third-best player in the world, Jamie, his elder brother, and Judy, their mother. Had Andy taken his driving test a day early and become confused in traffic? No, the Wimbledon semi-finalist of 20 days ago was tossing his racket bag across his shoulder and preparing for business.

Ian Conway, the North of Scotland president, was peacock proud. His county were down to the bare bones with five fit players and relegation to Group Two was a distinct possibility. Jamie said he would play once he had lost in an ATP Tour event in Poland (the first round, sadly) and he would see if Andy was up for it.

No rules were infringed, head office cleared it, the opposition, Hertfordshire, were cock a hoop and the story was on the Facebook pages of one of their players before the Murrays had donned their whites.

Suddenly those who have ridiculed the existence of this idiosyncratic week were bearing down on Eastbourne like men possessed - the photographic contingent quadrupled in an hour. County Cup stalwarts were inclined to purr and say, justifiably, that the Murrays' presence served notice that the event should not be consigned to the knacker's yard. That County is County, whoever you are, and here was Andy Murray to prove it.

Judy, for one, played 15 County Weeks for the North and only reached Group Three, but it meant a lot to her. Her younger son concurred. “I know pretty much all these guys from junior days,” Andy said. “I don't get to see them too often these days, a lot of them are coaches now and when Jamie said they needed us, I wasn't doing anything so it was an easy decision to come and play.”

County Week is all doubles, where the players call their lines and retrieve their own balls, with three matches each day for five days against the other four counties in your group. Andy - emergency cover for a day - partnered Owen Hadden, a ten-year veteran, a Scottish junior singles champion and former hockey international. Against them - and Hadden would confess he did not have that much to do with it - the Hertfordshire players became awed.

“In the first set, I was playing the man, not the ball,” said David Corrie, who partnered his brother, Ed, to a 6-1, 6-1 defeat in the opening match and who had paid his own air fare from Texas to represent his county. “I wish I'd stayed longer on court to enjoy it more. A shot that would have rushed a lot of players didn't rush him.”

Such are the nuances of this grand old event that three victories for Andy and Hadden was no guarantee of success, the North losing 5-4 to Hertfordshire, for whom the Corries clinched the deciding rubber, against Jamie and Johnny Pankhurst, 10-8 in a champions tie-break played in steady drizzle. The Scots may yet be relegated but they had kissed real life into the tournament.

Andy scooted off to meet his driving instructor to be taken through the theory element of the test today that will determine whether he can get himself to County Week next year, should the call come.

Jamie will be back on court today, against Dorset, victory vital if North of Scotland are to stand a chance of survival. “I hope those 12 and 14-year-olds who think that playing for their county doesn't matter to them might change their opinion after seeing what Andy has done for the North of Scotland today,” Conway said.