Abergavenny Pétanque Club

Mathew Howells receives his award from

Club Captain Gareth Spencer

Following our success in the WPA Qualifying Series 2009, David Mason, Mark Jones and myself from Abergavenny Petanque Club proudly accepted an invitation to represent Wales in the 12^th National de Petanque being held in Kerlouan, Finistere, Brittany between the 21^st and 23^rd of August 2009.

Firstly, some facts to put the tournament in some perspective:-

The 3^rd or 4^th “best” tournament in France.

Featuring 6 x World Champions + 5 x French Champions + current World record holder in the Shooting event and dozens of French Regional & District Champions.

All players FIPJP licence holders

480 Senior Triples

120 Ladies Doubles – separate competition

16 Junior Triples – separate competition

Budget of €150,000 for the tournament

Prizes of €30,000

258 x 15m x 4m pistes + 16 “Show” pistes

Stands holding 2500 spectators

20,000 spectators expected over the three days.

It’s Petanque, but not as we know it!!!

If you regard Petanque as a pastime this is not for you. This is full on competitive sport where every boule counts, every shot is planned and agreed by the team and winning is paramount.

Meeting in Abergavenny on Thursday 20^th evening, regrettably without our fourth player Andy Pook who had played such a big part in getting us here but could not make the trip due to work commitments, we drove down to Plymouth for the overnight Ferry to Roscoff. After an uncomfortable night we arrived in Roscoff at 7am to be greeted by a beautiful sunrise, a short walk around the town convinced us that we had done the right thing to book our 3 nights’ accommodation there. After breakfast at a café/bakery we got back into the car and set off on a short drive to see the sights of the north Brittany coast and onto Kerlouan to see the venue. On arrival there we spent the next hour walking round the venue scarcely believing what we were seeing. A tented village, sponsors banners everywhere, 258 properly laid and marked pistes, grandstands for 2500 people, a massive registration hall with 8 registration desks, and a truly impressive trophy stand that wouldn’t have looked out of place at any major sports event in the world. Here we met the organisers and were made to feel extremely welcome. A feeling that would last the whole tournament.

After lunch at a café in Lesneven we retuned to Kerlouan to watch the Shooting event. This was an invitational event for 16 top players including the current world record holder Francois N’Daiye of Madagascar. They were introduced to the crowd of approximately 1000 and set about the competition. This was a head to head competition with the winner progressing to the next round. There were 5 shooting disciplines each contested with one boule from 6, 7, 8, & 9m. The standard was fantastic, carreaux galore and lots of hands on heads and gallic shrugging. The competition was won by Dylan Rocher who beat fellow French international Cyril Georget in the final 46- 35. We were particularly impressed by the crowd involvement; they new what they were watching, appreciated and applauded good shots and were aware of every swing in fortunes.

Saturday 21^st - Now for the big one. The next morning we arrived early and were very pleased to meet Jean Yves Robic from Penarth PC and his two sons, Sam & Jesse who helped us through the registration process for the “National A”. The format was that we were drawn into a pool of four where winners played winners and losers played losers. Our first game was on piste 214 @ 9am against a team from Landivisiau. It was all any of us could do to let the first boules go. It was a very long game lasting longer than most around us but we learnt then that although we felt on top during a lot of ends the consistency of the opposition through all 6 boules meant that we were never in control. We lost the game 13-4.

This meant that we had to beat the other losers from our pool to progress in National A. We met a team from Mortlais on piste 213 and played extremely well as a team but were outplayed again by consistency and eventually lost 13-8 just before lunch @12 noon. One of the players in this team was the ex-President of Petanque Brittany and we were invited to join them in the VIP pavilion for drinks. We gladly accepted and enjoyed an hour of “elite” player spotting, lots of introductions and generous hospitality. We left the pavilion to get lunch from the BBQ. I was confident that I had ordered hot dog and chips but it turns out that I’d ordered chip butties. So much for my french vocabulary.

Having lost two games we were out of the National A and were automatically entered in the National B competition. This is now a win or go home situation. We were drawn against a team from Pluguffan on piste 200. This was a great game we had relaxed a bit now and played some tremendous boules. It was nip and tuck to 7 -7 when we played three great ends and pulled away to 11-7. We had victory in sight but we could not keep them down and went on to lose the game 13 – 11. We were out of the competition for that day.

Whilst accepting the offer of drinks by this team after the match Mark tapped me on the shoulder to say that there was someone who wanted to speak tome. I turned round only to have a microphone thrust under my nose with a bloke on the other end of it asking me loads of questions in his native French and broadcasting all round the site to 5000 people. Taken aback I tried my best to pick out words I understood from his questions and tried to form answers as to what I thought he was asking. After 5 minutes (seemed like an hour) of this pantomime Jean-Yves came running across the field to put me out of my misery and took over. Thank you Jean-Yves! I was minded of the old Morecambe and Wise sketch with Andre Previn when Ernie complains that Eric is making a mess of a piece of music but Eric explains that he is playing the right notes but not necessarily in the right order.

After taking some time to watch some of the “elite” teams play in the main arena we returned to Roscoff to enjoy some well earned food and drink.

Conclusion - In general terms we were pleased with our performance as a team, supporting and encouraging each other, when necessary changing tactics and attacking and defending at the appropriate times. We felt that we had the basic skills to compete at the early level of the tournament but we acknowledged that crucially we lacked the consistency of our opponents throughout the day.

We decided to enter the Brittany Regional Triples next day and extend our playing experience. This again is a fairly brutal format. Lose your first game and you get an entry in the repercharge; lose that and you go home.

On a particularly treacherous piste nicknamed “Swansea” we met the best team we played all weekend. I was completely outpointed by their first pointer who it appeared could make a boule dance its way to the coche when pitching from a great height into large lose stones. Their shooter threw thunderbolts which could clear the piste of many boules at once and in general they were far too accurate for us. We lost the game 13-2.

So this was it, win or go home. We met a team from Yffinniac and completely dominated the first half of the game. We lead 8-0 and perhaps allowed ourselves to dream of winning. Alas, it was not to be. Slowly but surely they climbed back into the game and after 1^1/2 hours they came out the winners 13-10. Desolation, Roscoff awaits. We watched some more of the elite teams play, said our goodbyes to the organisers who invited us back in two years time which we gladly accepted.

Conclusion - This was a fantastic experience for all of us, we had not experienced an event anything like this before and we were all mightily impressed. We would recommend that the WPA use this tournament and the one next year in Combrit as the one to send it’s top teams to instead of looking anywhere else. Evaluation of the results achieved by these teams over a number of years will be a good guide to the development of Petanque as a sport in Wales. This is hard edged Petanque coupled with great hospitality.

Peter Clarke, Mark Jones & David Mason - WPA 4

PS – The costs of going to this tournament worked out for us at about £450 each.

Following on from our Open success, our club closed singles and doubles event was held last Saturday in Bailey Park in glorious sunshine. The turnout for the event was one of the best, if not the best we have ever had so thanks to everyone for coming along and making the event so enjoyable, I hope you all had as much fun as I did! On the day Ian Bailey won the singles trophy and played consistently well all day and succeeded in taking home the doubles trophy as well in the afternoon when he played with Julie (!). I was singles runner up, Matthew Howells was 3^rd (after a phenomenal semi-final where he played great boule and pushed Ian all the way to 12 points!) and Andy Pook was 4^th. Bérengère and I were runners up in the doubles with Andy Pook and John Prosser and Colin and June Anderson sharing 3^rd spot.

A further honourable mention must go to Andy Pook who played one of the most memorable and special boule shots after the event in a friendly game!! He says he is available for coaching on Mondays at 7pm……. !

This weekend sees the Home Nations event return to Wales and will be played for the first time in Swansea. APC has 7 players involved in the competition so good luck to them all! The event is to be held all day Saturday and Sunday so if you are in the area, pop along and support our teams! A map to the terrain can be found on the WPA website.

As the league season winds down, there will still be a number of weekend events taking place, not least “finals day” in the BIG and WPA leagues and the Presidents Cup in Abergavenny on Sunday 13^th September. Jim Page from Brecon has also specifically requested I remind you of the doubles competition they are hosting on 23^rd August. Please contact Jim (pageja1@tiscali.co.uk) if you wish to play. I have also received an email from Bob Pugh this morning reminding me of the Welsh Wenvoe Open Triples on Sunday 30^th August and if you wish to play you should contact Dai Cannan (d_cannan@sky.com). Both Jim and Dai are playing in the Home Nations this weekend.

Best of luck for the final few games of the season, particularly in the promotion or relegation battles!!

Four representatives of Abergavenny Petanque Club recently visited Troon Petanque Club in Scotland to celebrate the 20^th Anniversary of the Troon club. Boulers took part in a week end of festivities culminating in an open tournament. Abergavenny Bouler Pat Ford won the Plate Competition teaming up with members from Scotland and France. Members of Abergavenny Petanque Club certainly have opportunities to play their sport far and wide – they are now planning a possible trip to Normandy to take on the experts! To join the club contact 01873 853317, or pop along to the piste in Bailey Park on a Monday evening!

John Prosser

Dear all,

Congratulations to all ladies who participated in last week’s Ladies Qualifier in the pouring rain at the Wheatsheaf! Out of 4 triples teams, 5 players were from Abergavenny, more than any other club in the WPA which is a fantastic achievement and is testament to the standard of play of the female members of the club. Although it seems a little weird to say it (!), many congratulations to Bérengère for finishing in the top team and thereby qualifying to represent the Welsh Pétanque Association at the World Championships, probably in Thailand, in November this year. Depending on the final venue being confirmed and the potential to raise sponsorship, her attendance is not finalised as yet so watch this space!!!

The APC Open entries have really picked up pace and the event is now over half-full with just under 2 months before the competition date! The competition promises to be the highlight of our calendar and if you have not entered yet but plan to, you’d better hurry and send your form in!!! Our meetings are now underway for the organisation of the day and I will be in touch with further information and rota’s etc in the first week of June! Please do everything you can to ensure you are available to help make the day a success!

Finally, you will see the league scores and tables regularly being updated on the website and it seems the Reds are off to a stormer in Division 2! Congratulations to them and best of luck to everyone for the next few weeks. Keep an eye on our site and the WPA site for forthcoming events you can take part in.

See you soon!

Gareth

Firstly congratulations to Ian Bailey who was the sole member of Abergavenny Pétanque Club in the successful Welsh team who defended the Celtic Challenge Trophy for the third time in a row. Congratulations also go to the whole team who have done extremely well to achieve this feat and to win a closely contested contest by just one game from Ireland and 2 games from Scotland!! Next year the event will be back in Wales (it really will be 3 years since we hosted the event!) and you will all have the opportunity to qualify to represent Wales in it, at a time and place to be decided later in the year!

A number of club representatives have also just returned from a Twinning trip to Beaupréau where several games were played with and against the local side, SMS pétanque in a “melee” competition. The aim of the competition was to participate in a social game of pétanque with the traditional aperitif afterwards!! Much of the trip was devoted to celebrating the 20 years of Twinning between our 2 towns, all of the participants from Abergavenny had an enjoyable weekend and members of APC enjoyed their games of pétanque, and a try at “sand boule” in some cases too! APC’s very own “celebrity couple” of Mayor and Mayoress John and Christine Prosser were much in demand during the whole trip and did a sterling job representing our town and club at a multitude of functions and events. Despite the success of the whole event, there was a sentiment amongst many “petanquers” that it would be nice for the 2 clubs to meet outside of the Twinning “framework” for a weekend of 100% boules…..and pétanque-related socialising of course!!! Now that the Twinning has created the “bond”, we will investigate the possibility of a “Pétanque Club” only trip and see how feasible that may be!

Finally, the league season is now underway and both the Blues and Reds have made a good start to the campaign, and are currently in the top 2 places in their respective divisions. Having only played one game so far due to a bye, the Clarets are solidly placed mid-table, just above the Golds, although the Wheatsheaf C in division 2 have won both of their games 4-0 and are the early pace-setters. With only 2 weeks gone however, everything is still to play for, so every point (and shot….) counts!!

Don’t forget your entries for the Abergavenny Open if you haven’t already sent them, and I will be in touch soon regarding the details when my sub-committee has met! The event itself will take place on the 12^th July and, as I mentioned before, it is imperative that we get as many helpers involved as possible to make this event a success and a stand-out event on the calendar for the future. I am assuming therefore that all members will want to be part of this grand occasion for our club, even if you can only spare a few hours, but if for some reason you will be unable to help out at all on the day it is important you please let me know ASAP as I will start organising “teams” to run the event very soon!

Good luck all, and see you soon.

Gareth