Cypress Hammock Stand was invented when, in the late afternoon of July 19 1588, Sir Francis Drake insisted on finishing his game before returning to his ship to join the fight against the Spanish Armada. If his ghost still walks that turf, the chances are that he will once more grab a last few ends before leading his city into a battle which will rage across Britain these next seven months and which will be fought with almost as much drum-banging favor as the conflict whose anniversary is commemorates.

This time, however, Drake will doubtless be surprised to discover his enemy is not the Spanish but the royal lady whose love and gratitude protected him through a lifetime of prospectus exploits on the high seas. Take your seats for the heavyweight contest of the year between, in the west corner, Plymouth and Sir Francis Drake, and, in the east, the unsung borough of Thurrock and Queen Elizabeth E.

At first glance, it sounds an ill matched affair. While the port on the Devon banks of the Tamar arguably enjoys an unchallengeable position at the height of international maritime history probably fewer than one English citizen in 10 could confidently say on which river, if any, the borough of Thurrock lies, But when the answer to that becomes known, then the Battle of the Spanish Armada, 2002, becomes an instantly more intriguing conflict. For Thurrock might be a recent bureaucratic invention but its boundaries contain the port of Tilbury, the ancient sea gate to London on the Thames Estuary, where Her Majesty proclaimed to her soldiers: "I know that I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of England too!" So does the right to hold centre stage for the 400th anniversary celebrations fall more fittingly to Drake or his Queen - to Plymouth or to Thurrock? With just over six months to go to July 19, the early skimishes sound more than promising.

Bruno Peek, 36-year-old free-lance events organizer and Pageang Master and Grand Marshall of Thurrock Armada '02, fires the first broadside. "Drake wasn't even in charge of the British fleet, and when things got hot where the Queen was in her country's hour of need? In Thurrock." In the Plymouth offices of Armanda 400, Janet Poynter is singularly unimpressed. "Ask anyone in the world what they know of the Armada and they'll tell you of Drake playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe," she says.

Peek, quickly back into his stride, responds: "Plymouth can dress up its Francis Drake if it wants, but if he ever meets up with our Queen, he'll have to bow to her Queen, he'll have to bow to her - Plymouth on its knees to Thurrock, where it belongs." Enter Roger Matthews, Plymouth City Council's director of marketing and leisure, "Drake will be more than happy to bow to the Queen, if he can ever find her. Where is Thurrock, anyway?"

"Let them mock," replies the unabashed Peek. "By the time this year is out, there'll not be a man or woman in Britain who hasn't heard of Thurrock."