Petanque Wallingford

Easter Monday 1st April - Woke to a gloomy day – just our luck.  The previous day had been sunshine. And it was trying to SNOW.  But at least it was dry, and by the afternoon, it might just be sunny, or at least warmer.
    And so it transpired – the temperature reached a dizzy 6 degrees.  Eleven of us turned out to play the Money Melee Go Round with the entry fees being returned as prizes. After Registration we set to and had a lovely time. Playing 4 full games on a lovely piste.
     We had hired the pavilion so we could have tea afterwards. T had made sandwiches and a little box with Easter eggs for each of the winners, G sorted the cash prizes into packets. At about 3.30 we had tea and prizegiving - 1st prize went to Chris, 2nd to Sue, 3rd to Kevin, both guests who have played with us before, and the Friendliest Player was T (in other words she came last …! She had an amazing score which even the coach said took some doing …. Oh well, better luck next time at least she got her 'stake' back.)
     We play again on Sunday, and then next week, 10th April we start our new Season CLUBNIGHTS with, we hope, some new people joining. We also hope for a good outcome for a terrain in the months to come. Watch this space -  as they say.

In June of 2012 we had a piste on the Kinecroft in Wallingford and people came along to play and sign up to join Petanque Wallingford. (click the link)
(carnival-day-16th-june-2012.html.)
      Well, one of the chaps who came to play with us that Saturday has joined and plays regularly for 'fun', but he also has a serious reason – he is taking part in the 19th International Transplant Games in Durban (South Africa). The games are being held between 28th July and 4th August 2013. (The games are open to anyone who has had a transplant of some sort - he has had a kidney transplant. We are not eligible as some of us have only had replacements – knees, hips etc.) He attended the annual UK&NI games in Bath 2010, Belfast 2011 and Medway 2012 playing Badminton & Squash!
    Pétanque was one of the games at the 18th International Transplant Games held in Sweden in 2011 and he was determined to get a British Pétanque Team together for the 2013 games. He is currently lobbying to get Petanque introduced as one of the core games in the UK & NI Transplant games (it is not played currently) as it is an ideal sport for Transplant Athletes.  Petanque is one of a list of sports that can be selected by the hosting country for the world games but is not a core sport yet. South Africa chose to make it one of their selected sports!
     Meanwhile, he has joined us to learn to play while the lobbying goes ahead.  We have, as you know, a qualified coach, so conditions for an aspiring Pétanque athlete are ideal. The actual terrain to play on is a bit more tricky, but we have a couple of places to play at the moment. In the future we want to be in the forefront helping people learn to play.
      He is the captain of the newly formed Pétanque team going to the games. We have been training him at Pétanque as hard as we can go to get him in shape for the games in 2013. He has never played before but is working hard so he is at least beaten in style ...
       He got a nice little bag for Christmas in which to stow all his kit – his boules, little cloth to polish them, cochonnets, licence and he now also has his top with appropriate embroidery and Pétanque on the back – and we are very excited.  He is coming on in leaps and bounds: pointing very well and learning to be a fiend at shooting! One of our members who has played in competitions before says he is doing very well, but will be against tough opposition – but we've got to start somewhere. This is the games website: http://www.wtg2013.com/

            We wish him the very best in his endeavours and will post things here whenever we can.

Members already know that the club aspires to have its own purpose-built terrain so members can play whenever they want to; so we can organise events, matches, training, fun for the kids, open competitions, encourage more people to play ... Plans are in hand. Watch this space, as they say.

We all met on Wednesday 2nd May - 11 of us (much nicer weather, at last!). We started off with an introduction to the official rules and court etiquette. We delivered our boules to the cochonnet to ascertain teams and set to on two courts playing in earnest. And what a lot of fun we had.  Some of use played like demons and other like demon apprentices - but we had some good practice 'reading' the terrain! One team had a really difficult court with hills and valleys and grassy patches and some large puddles - good for washing the boules if you landed in one ...

We are all looking forward to some more games  (one tomorrow night) to hone our skills for our first Funday.  So watch this space! Looking forward to Wednesday night.

The second training session took place on 11 April – 3 people from last week and 7 new people turned up.  The weather was much nicer – sun shining and no wind.  Loren took the new comers and I took the ‘old hands’ from last week.  Coach introduced the new comers to the mysteries of the game, while us old hands did a quick recap on what was covered last week. We then played a game and quite surprised ourselves at how good we were! But as the sun went down it began to get cold (it is still very early spring you see!) and three quarters of the way through the second game we decided to abandon ship. The light was fading anyway.  Roll on Summer.

I missed the third training session but heard that it drizzled. The 6 people who came played, nevertheless.  I am told ‘only the Brits play in the rain, the French don’t’. Well, who can blame them!

And so, the fourth session, which took place on the 25th April. A decided improvement in the weather – slightly windy, but a warm wind and good light. Those who had played in the rain the previous week came fully prepared for wet conditions with waterproof kit! And some had their new boules to try out. We had a very close game : Roger the budding shooter and Christiane his pointer played like demons. Coach and me and Adrian, new this season, managed to get 2 points to win the game. So we are looking forward to a rematch next week.

We presented ourselves for the MiniRugby event to showcase Petanque Wallingford, but it was not really the ‘right’ venue for us despite the fact that we were trying to attract some of the 2000 odd Denis The Menace lookalikes to come and play during the summer holidays. There were a few nibbles from the parents but not enough to justify the set up.  And the wind was icy!

Well we must keep publicising the Club to show people what fun they can have and that we welcome new members.

The final (formal) training session this season takes place on the 2nd May. Thereafter we will continue to play on Wednesday evenings and plan to hold a Funday sometime towards the end of June or early July.  We should all have a bit of skill by then, so it should be fun.

Our first training session has just happened. But was it cold! The wind was blowing and the clouds were just above head level. Five new people turned up and we had about 45 minutes throwing steel around under our coach's watchful eye.  Fortunately it started raining, so we were able to call it a day (well, night) and come home - pretty well frozen.  More next week.