Petanque Wallingford

What with one thing and another the site has not reflected our activities lately, so this is a catch up. We have been playing all 2019 so far. Lovely weather in February and FREEZING COLD recently! But nothing puts us off. We played our first club match - The First Presidents Trophy - and this was won by Val Smith (for the ladies) and Mark Dowman (for the Men).
     We have played two rounds to find the teams to qualify to go to Hayling Island for the Inter-Regional Matches in September 2019. The first round was played at the Boulodrome - and it was very cold! While the second round was played on the 31st March at Burnham - where it was marginally less cold.
     The Thames Valley have moved up to Division 1; teams 1 to 8 play in the Main competition, while teams 9 to 12 play in the 2nd Division of the Challenge. See the table below for the make up of final teams. Wallingford have two teams in the top positions (2 and 3) - Anon astonished themselves by finishing in 2nd place.  They will meet the top players in the country and have 4 months to polish up their game...  (Thank you JP for the pictures)

          TEAM NAME             PLAYER 1, PLAYER 2, PLAYER 3, PLAYER 4
TV1   The Twiglets           Phil Claydon, Carl Claydon, Paul Webb
TV2   Anon                     Dave Chalkley, Chris Shaw, John Parsons, Gerry Lewis
TV3   Pickled Eggs           Mark Dowman, Chris Hurst, Dean Webb,
TV4   Dirty Beaches         Elaine Smith, Russell Ford, Rob Smith, Lesley Davis
TV5   Marlow Magpies      Eric Hanlon, Maureen Hanlon, Amrit Seetanna,
TV6   The Villians            Alun Jones, Richard Button, Ron Girdler, Bob Young
TV7   The Commitments  Mark Blackall, Andy King, Phil King, Gussy
TV8   Fatty & The Boys    Arran Togwell, Laura Winkworth, Sean Hawkins,
TV9   Bozos                    Peter Miles, Alan Wickendon, Andy McCabe,
TV10 Golden Girls           Linda Thorpe, Helen Blackall, Jo Hawkins, Maxine Clark
TV11 The Misfits             Eileen Maguire, Steve Robbins, Ron Riddick,
TV12 Les Rebelles          Andrew Prince, William Walley, John Thomas, Ray Impey

And a few pictures of us playing in the RTQS 1 at Wallingford and RTQS 2 at Burnham.

        

The Club AGM was held on 19th November when the new President (Alec Hayton), Treasurer (Richard Doughty), Club Secretary (Val Smith) and Fixtures Secretary (Gerry Lewis) were elected. Moiya and Loren are still on the committee and Mark joins them. More committee members may be co-opted.
24th November was the annual club lunch – play first then food. Ten people who said they were coming failed to show up, but 35 members and some of their partners had a find time. The Annual Melee Shield was awarded to Richard Doughty and 1st Place in the morning's play went to Julie, 2nd Place to Julian and 3rd place to Jane M. Thank you to all those who helped set the tables, get ready and prepare the repast.
And so, play continues, with Winter Pairs played on Sunday 2nd December - Moiya and Sarah are second so far in their league. The next meeting of the Winter Pairs will be in January 2019, but we hope to play on Boxing day before then!

August: Mark Dowman and three Burnham players were number one of the eight teams representing England in the Home Nations competition (England, Scotland, Wales and Jersey) held in Jersey this year. And what a fabulous set up they have there. Two PW people went to Jersey to support them – England won, just!
October and November were really busy so there is a lot of catching up to do.
In October the start of the Winter Pairs was cancelled due to a real cats and dogs day, so the missed matches will be played as a 'double header' at the December meeting.
We had a birthday play day for JJ's 80th – some play first followed by prize giving – JJ had given me £80 for prizes so I had a lovely time spending it. We had 11 prizes in all including two for the youngest players – who were both 9 at the time, and one for the oldest player who is 87 and we had nibbles, made by members, in the clubhouse.
Early November saw us play the Euro Cup for Clubs against Hereford 1 which we won 4:1, now we must meet Hereford 2 in early December for the next round.
On the 17th November some of us went to the Thames Valley Presentation Dinner in Maidenhead when the awards to winners of the various competitions held throughout the year were presented. Mark Dowman and Chris Hurst won the lion's share for Petanque Wallingford, although the Red Kites were very happy to receive the Runners Up medals for the Sunday Leagues.
Below is a list of those awards won by PW:
Mark and Chris H - 1st in TV Winter Pairs,
Mark, Dave, Chris H, Chris S - 3rd in TV Regional Qualifiers for Hayling Island
Red Kites - Runners up in TV Weekend League
Mark, Dave, Chris S - 1st in TV Regional Triples
Mark, Dave - 3rd in TV Regional Pairs
Mark - 1st in TV Shooting
Mark - 1st in TV Singles
Ava, Mark - plate winners in TV mixed pairs
Sarah & Chris S – plate runners up in TV mixed pairs.

Friday 21st September - and 20 people turned out to play for the Over 70s Pairs Trophy - the edge of a hurricane was passing over the terrain so it was incredibly windy - nearly blew some of us over! However, we managed three games, and the sun shon. The winners were Val Smith and Eileen Macland.

rAnd Wednesday 26th September, by contrast, warm and calm! We played for the Memorial Trophy, remembering those who are no longer with us.. We played a 3 game 'individual melee' - 24 members including the two minors Ava and Josie. The (pairs) games were keenly fought and Dave Smith won: (3 games + 26), and 2nd and 3rd places were taken by Pam Frewin (3 games +23) and Chris Hurst (3 games +14) respectively.

Friday the 14th to Sunday 16th was the 2018 Inter Regional Championships at Hayling Island.  It's the biggest event in the Petanque England calendar where approx 900 licensed players, from all the regions in the UK take part. Each region can enter a maximum of 12 qualifying teams.  Petanque Wallingford put a team of three forward, Chris Hurst, Dave Chalkley and Mark Dowman, who qualified 3rd in the Thames Valley Region qualifiers over the summer, getting to play the TV No.3 spot in the Inter Regional Championships. The team was originally a team of four but Chris Shaw had to drop out last minute.

The conditions at Hayling were perfect; sunshine and a light breeze. Mark Dowman kicked off the weekend with a fine performance in Friday's shooting competition but losing out on a top spot place.  "It's a lonely place up there" Mark says. But that's the burden he had to carry having won the Thames Valley shooting competition over the summer and having to represent the Thames Valley against all the other regions' No.1 shooters.  Well done Mark!
The Championship kicked off in earnest early Saturday morning and the fine weather continued throughout the whole weekend, which really brought the best out of the teams. The competition consisted of everyone playing 7 matches on Saturday and 5 matches on Sunday against their regional peers.  Thames Valley played brilliantly, coming second place in their division, Division two, only 2 games away from Sussex who got the top spot. Thames Valley teams were awarded silver medals and both teams earned a promotion to Division 1 next year.  This means if Petanque Wallingford put a qualifying team forward in 2019, we'll be playing against the big boys, like London, Chiltern and Kent. It'll be tough next year, but Thames Valley are getting a deserved reputation for being the region to watch out for in 2019.

Chris, Dave and Mark flew the flag for Petanque Wallingford and came 2nd out of the twelve teams who represented the Thames Valley, winning 9 out of their 12 games. Talk about Petanque heaven, what a great weekend.  Well done lads!

4 and 5th August : The 2018 competition, between England, Scotland, Wales and Jersey, was hosted by the Jersey Petanque Club at Les Quennevais Sports Centre: 8 teams of up to 4 players each per 'nation' so lots of people!
One of Petanque Wallingford's members made up the England squad’s top team (England 1). The other three players in Engl 1 came from the Burnham club, also in the Thames Valley Region. And two PW members went to watch play – to help keep their spirits up and their mind on the job ….
The competition was held over two days (Saturday and Sunday) and the weather was amazing – terrific blue sky all day and hot. Fortunately, because the Jersey Club is near the coast we had a breeze to cool us down a bit.
After twelve hard fought games by every team, England won by just three games (60 games 270 points) over Jersey (57 games 255 points). The England 1 team won 9 games, second best of the England squad! A very well organised competition, and most enjoyable day was had by all.
The FJIJP, the International Petanque Governing body wants to get petanque included as a Olympic sport in 2024 when the games are held in Paris, so with a bit of luck … maybe we'll get to go to Paris to support our players!

29th July 2018
This year's 2018 Thames Valley Singles and Shooting competition was held at Petanque Wallingford, on a very wet and windy Sunday 29th July. There were 20 entries, representing clubs in the Thames Valley Region from Wallingford to as far east as Harrow.

With waterproofs on and against the elements, the competitors fought the Snake, a random draw where each player contested five one-on-one games, the objective being to win as many as possible. After three games, the rain eased and play stopped to allow for the shooting competition. Five rounds of 4 balls with a possible 100 points, the objective to blast the target ball out of the circle at four different distances. It's no mean feat to hit a target ball with pin-point accuracy and good shooters are few and far between. However, PelWal's own top shooter, Mark Dowman beat the competition with an outstanding 30 points to take the Thames Valley shooting title 2018, the second year in a row.

After that, play resumed for the remaining two games in the singles. Mark won the Thames Valley Singles title in 2017 and this time, he won all his 5 games to take 1st place overall. 
However, to win the coveted title again, he had to play against the 2nd place holder Elaine Smith from the Burnham club. After a hard fought match, Mark won 13-9 to take the 2018 Thames Valley Singles title for the second year running. What a result for Mark and Petanque Wallingford!

Note: 'Our' Mark and Paul (the Regional Games organiser), his son Dean and Christian – all from the Burnham Petanque club - will form part of the England squad of 24 players on 5 & 6th August in Jersey. Good luck!
 
Follow this link to see more about the Home Nations Match:
 https://www.jerseysport.je/event/the-home-nations-petanque-competition-2018

There is an article in the paper today about the FIPJP trying to get petanque into the Olympics as a sport - The article says a lot about the French and their treatment of it as a 'game' played by old men drinking pastis - a total stereotype. There is much much more to it than that.
Our club is the biggest in the Thames Valley Region and is pretty well organised. We have a super 8 piste terrain plus the new one of 3 pistes with a different surface so we can practice plombe! We also have a club strip which is worn when we hold matches, and we try to coordinate bottoms too. We have many groups who come and play for fun, it's true, but we also host league and regional matches.
PETANQUE (aka French boules) is played all over the world. It has been recognised by Sport England as a sport for several years now, and Petanque has been recognised as a Transplant Sport for at least 4 years. A huge match is held in France with several thousand people taking part. About 900 people gather in September to take part in the UK inter-regional matches - each region fields 12 teams of 3 or 4 - so there is lots of competitive play too..

This match was played on Wednesday clubnight. The new trophy holders are Mind the Gap - Louise and Steve.