KENT’S championship captain David Fulton has been awarded a benefit for 2006.

The 33-year-old opening batsman who nowadays lives in Whitstable has been given the honour two years ahead of the county’s usual schedule of a decade after winning the county cap.

Speaking after the announcement Fulton said: “I’m obviously delighted because, as a lot of people keep reminding me, I am one of the elder statesmen of the side now having been here since 1991.

“It took me a while to get my cap and traditionally Kent don’t award benefits until 10 years after winning your cap, so the club have looked after me by bringing this honour forward a couple of years and I’m very grateful to them for that.

“I hope part of that decision is down to my length and quality of service, my loyalty and commitment to the cause and maybe something to do with my eye injury, as that could have bought about a premature end to my career and, who knows, may yet foreshorten it.”

Fulton, who made his debut for the club in 1992, has decided to share half his benefit proceeds with two local charities very much close to his heart.

Some 40 per cent of the profits will aid the Samantha Dickson Research Trust – the largest single backer of laboratory-based brain tumour research in the UK.

The county opening batsman opted to help the trust having lost his brother-in-law and former county team-mate Richard Davis to a brain tumour, while former Kent and England seam bowler Alan Igglesden remains a sufferer.

The remaining 10 per cent of Fulton’s charity pool will be donated to the Ridgeview School near Tonbridge to help fund a new hydrotherapy pool.

The school assists children aged 11 to 18 with severe learning and physical disabilities.

The life and coaching work of Richard Davis, who helped coach Ridgeview students at Kent’s grounds in Tunbridge Wells and Canterbury the summer before his death, link the two charities.

The benefit year will be launched at the Jarvis Ramada Hotel and Resort in Hollingbourne, near Maidstone on January 27 followed by a St Valentine’s Ball at Broome Park near Canterbury in February.