Heart of England AGM
The region's AGM was held at Solihull on Sunday 6th. November. The main business was to elect the executive members for the coming year and with Barry Cox deciding that this was the year to relinquish the Presidency there was quite a change at the top table. Richard Powell (Stockton) was elected into the roll of President, Geoff Phillips (Hampton) is now secretary freeing up David Mason (Les Nomades) to take over as Vice President Playing with Bill Wood moving into the Membership Secretary seat. Tony Thompson has stood down as an Auditor and his place has been taken by Barry Cox, Keith Turner remaining as the second Auditor, keeping some continuity in the roll.
Barry welcomed Hampton PC into the region as a new club, although some of their members had played in the Summer League under the Solihull banner while awaiting the registration of Hampton Club. I look forward to meeting more of them in competition in 2017.
Following the formal business Barry presented the trophies won at this year's competitions and a total of five were collected by 3 Coventry members. Big congratulations must go to Elianne , awarded the President's Junior Trophy in recognition of her successes throughout the year. Brian picked up the Over 50's award with David Roberts (Whitnash Windmill) and the President's Cup for the most points in qualifying competitions. Tony Thompson also picked up two trophies the Closed Singles and the Closed Triples (with David Roberts, Jeff Rand (Stockton) and David Kimpton (Also Stockton)). Well done all.
Tony Thompson 07/11/16
The region's AGM was held at Solihull on Sunday 6th. November. The main business was to elect the executive members for the coming year and with Barry Cox deciding that this was the year to relinquish the Presidency there was quite a change at the top table. Richard Powell (Stockton) was elected into the roll of President, Geoff Phillips (Hampton) is now secretary freeing up David Mason (Les Nomades) to take over as Vice President Playing with Bill Wood moving into the Membership Secretary seat. Tony Thompson has stood down as an Auditor and his place has been taken by Barry Cox, Keith Turner remaining as the second Auditor, keeping some continuity in the roll.
Barry welcomed Hampton PC into the region as a new club, although some of their members had played in the Summer League under the Solihull banner while awaiting the registration of Hampton Club. I look forward to meeting more of them in competition in 2017.
Following the formal business Barry presented the trophies won at this year's competitions and a total of five were collected by 3 Coventry members. Big congratulations must go to Elianne , awarded the President's Junior Trophy in recognition of her successes throughout the year. Brian picked up the Over 50's award with David Roberts (Whitnash Windmill) and the President's Cup for the most points in qualifying competitions. Tony Thompson also picked up two trophies the Closed Singles and the Closed Triples (with David Roberts, Jeff Rand (Stockton) and David Kimpton (Also Stockton)). Well done all.
Tony Thompson 07/11/16
EuroCup for Clubs 2016
On Saturday October 22nd Coventry PC hosted second and third round matches in the EPA rounds of the EuroCup for Clubs. First up in the morning was a second round match between the host club and Rayne Swan from Essex. The Swan team had travelled up on Friday, full of expectation and Coventry were anticipating a tough match, however no one foresaw the 5-0 whitewash the Swan were to suffer, especially as they had defeated Hanbury 1 in the previous round A stunning performance. Our opponents for the third round, held after a pub lunch, had not travelled so far, just up the road from Kenilworth. Again we expected a tough match and I will quote directly from Brian's message to the team ''I was especially impressed with Sheila and Reg's game against Patrick and Jean-Denis, having been wiped out by them and Eileen in the triples, and to get to 10-10, and even, temporarily, to 12-10 on the ground was a great 'bounce-back'. I must just mention the efforts of our youngest player. Elianne remained focused throughout the entire day and produced some super play. She was a good team player, very supportive and positive, and was a credit to the club. |
Thanks to Alf and Arthur who played steadily throughout and to Rita and John for their continual support (and to John for staying right to the end to clear away).
Thinking positively, we reached the last 32 before being knocked out and, given our depleted numbers, acquitted ourselves very well.'' Brian That just leaves me to add my congratulations to the team as we all look forward to next year. WHO KNOWS WHAT WE ARE CAPABLE OF. Tony Thompson |
Closed Pairs 2016
Just 3 teams registered for the club's Closed Pairs on Sunday September 25th. This disappointing turnout reflects the ageing of our members, small club membership, holidays and one playing in a National competition. Arthur arrived without a partner in with the hope that another singleton would turn up to make another team but unfortunately that did not happen. We payed a double round robin so that each team played the other two twice, thus getting in a full days play, with the team taking a bye joining Arthur for some practice games. Bright but showery weather as forecast but we got away with just a single, though heavy, shower mid afternoon.
Results of the day were Alf and Elianne winning with 3 wins out of 4 and a points difference of +14, Tony and Betty second 2 +2 and last years winner Keith, playing with Rita, third with 1 win -16. Having won the competition with Brian in 2014 and 2015 Keith now has a gap in his trophy display in his bedroom.
Traditionally the Closed Singles is played on the same day as the Pairs but somehow it has been left off the calendar this year so we will have to find a new slot for it before the end of 2016.
Photographs are in the gallery.
Tony Thompson
Just 3 teams registered for the club's Closed Pairs on Sunday September 25th. This disappointing turnout reflects the ageing of our members, small club membership, holidays and one playing in a National competition. Arthur arrived without a partner in with the hope that another singleton would turn up to make another team but unfortunately that did not happen. We payed a double round robin so that each team played the other two twice, thus getting in a full days play, with the team taking a bye joining Arthur for some practice games. Bright but showery weather as forecast but we got away with just a single, though heavy, shower mid afternoon.
Results of the day were Alf and Elianne winning with 3 wins out of 4 and a points difference of +14, Tony and Betty second 2 +2 and last years winner Keith, playing with Rita, third with 1 win -16. Having won the competition with Brian in 2014 and 2015 Keith now has a gap in his trophy display in his bedroom.
Traditionally the Closed Singles is played on the same day as the Pairs but somehow it has been left off the calendar this year so we will have to find a new slot for it before the end of 2016.
Photographs are in the gallery.
Tony Thompson
Inter Regional Championship and Challenge 2016
What a difference a day makes!!
This was the first time I had played in this competition since the early days of Brean Sands. I had heard that it would be a much improved competition and so it was, from the competition itself to the accommodation and catering at Mill Rythe.
Upon arrival we were allocated a parking area, which turned out to be in a field at the back of the site as the car park, or coach park, was being turned into pistes for the competition. I didn’t arrive in time to join in the practice competition which Barry Cox had organised but was able to throw a few boules before checking into the accommodation at 4pm. a small chalet type room but plenty big enough for the three nights I was to spend there I had heard good things about the food at Hayling and I was not to be disappointed. A selection of English dishes and a daily foreign one were the order of the day, full English breakfasts in the morning and all served by a very pleasant waitress. Entertainment was provided each evening by the resident crew and although I did not get to any of it I understand that it was first class.
Saturday dawned dry at first but that weather was to turn rapidly downhill and shortly after the start of play the heavens opened and the tap was opened more and more as the day went on. Pistes that were Ok at first soon became very wet, then flooded and by lunchtime even the EPA President was seen brushing water of terrains in an attempt to keep play on time and by early afternoon Mill Rythe staff had resorted to using a pump. Pistes became muddy and pointing was difficult but as always the best players learned to cope with the conditions and the less able ones struggled. Boules became covered in mud and I gave up trying to keep my jeans and over-trousers out of the mud, shoes took nearly a week to dry out.
Somehow the organisers managed to keep play more or less to schedule, just one game having to be completed on Sunday morning with a 7-30 start. Heart of England had set a target of staying in the 1st division and had calculated that a 48% win rate would be needed for that. By Saturday evening we were behind schedule at 24 wins from 56 games, 42.8%.
Sunday dawned bright and dry and soon become a scorcher, weather wise, so sou’westers were replaced by sun hats and waterproof clothing by sun cream. The car park terrains changed from slow and wet to baked hard, very dry and unpredictably fast. The best pointers were able to control boules, the rest of us had great difficulty. Anyone who could either spin a boule sideways to keep it straight or put on back spin to hold it up were at a distinct advantage over us mere mortals. Scooting was the order of the day.
Heart of England Juniors won 2 games but finished bottom of their league, whereas the Combined Juniors team which included Coventry’s Elianne David won 4 games to finish 7th.
An innovation this year was to hold the Champion of Champions and Junior Shooting competitions at Hayling Island, with the finals being played under flood lights. This worked out very well as it meant that there were big crowds of supporters for both. HoEs own Glenn Woodward got into the last 4 of the Champion of Champions competition, which was won by Sean Prendergast but the star of the evening was young Daniel Rayne (East Midlands) who won the Junior title with a score which would have won in the seniors if he had played there. Another innovation was that the organisers were able to post the results of each round live onto the EPA web site. So effective was it that most of us were using smart phones to keep up to date with scores instead of troubling the overworked control desk.
As I said earlier HoE had targeted retaining division 1 status in the Championship as the priority and achieved that with a total of 40 wins (42%) with team 8 (Barry Cox, Carol Cox, Aimee and Di.) winning 7 of their 12 games. The stars of the HoE squad were in the Challenge where Reg and Sheila Eburne, playing with Keith Turner won 8 out of 12 and Tony & Eileen Sollis with Ian Dyson and Charlie Caruana winning 6. Unfortunately that was not enough to avoid relegation to division 2 of the Challenge for next year.
In conclusion I can say that HoE showed that it is possible for the small regions to compete with the big boys, there is nothing to fear and we more than held our own, effectively finishing 6th. Of 15.
Preparation for the Inter-Regional competition 2017 starts now. We need to practice more, work with our coaches and take advice. Play top class competitions where possible so that come September next year we are at our peak.
I hope to be there for what I am sure will be another great weekend.
All the results can be found at http://www.englishpetanque.org.uk/InterRegionalResults.html
Tony Thompson
Three-way between Northern, Heart of England and Mercia regions.
As preparation in the run-up to the Inter-Regional competition at Hayling Island in September it has been customary for Heart of England to challenge Northern Region to a triples competition involving the Inter-regional squads for both regions, a competition HoE had not yet won. This year it was expanded by inviting the new Mercia region to take part as well and the location was to be their magnificent facility at Mansfield. The terrain is in Titchfield park, where Mansfield PC have converted the original bowling greens, now covered with varying amounts of gravel, into 16 pistes. They have the use of a large club house and stores shed. For the competition they also erected a marquee. Breakfast of Croissants, butter and jam started the day and a buffet lunch was also provided at 1pm. All this was greatly appreciated and we have to thank the helpers from several clubs for arranging it.
The competition started at 9-30 and took the format of each team playing three teams from each of the other two regions, 1s playing 1s, 2s, and 3s, etc. The Coventry pair of Tony Thompson and Brian Stote with Whitnash pair of David Roberts and David Kimpton played at number 1 for HoE. Competition was hard fought, in a friendly atmosphere, with Heart of England emerging winners on points difference at the end of a day which finished around 7pm. Full results are on the results page and pictures in the gallery.
Whitnash Summer Pairs
Whitnash Open Pairs 13th. August 2016 Entries had to be declined for our Whitnash Open Pairs competition, since the maximum number of 24 teams was reached two weeks ahead of the event. This was the first time that Whitnash had held an Open Pairs competition, replacing our normal Open Summer Triples competition which has been held over recent years. As well as entrants from the local Heart of England Clubs, teams travelled from Hereford and the Chiltern Region to support the event and our thanks to everyone who took part. The competition was run with six leagues of four teams, playing three games in the morning rounds. The winners of each League, plus the next two best scorers, progressed to the Gold competition in the afternoon, with the next eight best teams moving to the Silver competition and the lowest scoring teams going into the Bronze. The competition then played a Knockout round, followed by semis and a final in each category. The overall winners of the Gold were Paolo and Sue Infantino from Chiltern who defeated Brian Stote and Nigel Ashby in the final. In the Silver category, Barry Scott and Phil Price beat Peter Taylor and Steph Moulden (Chiltern) and the Bronze competition was won by Ian and Mel Williams from Hereford who beat Lynn Roberts and Russ Davies. Cash prizes were presented to the finalists in each category.
Report courtesy of Whitnash Windmill Petanque Club.
Whitnash Open Pairs 13th. August 2016 Entries had to be declined for our Whitnash Open Pairs competition, since the maximum number of 24 teams was reached two weeks ahead of the event. This was the first time that Whitnash had held an Open Pairs competition, replacing our normal Open Summer Triples competition which has been held over recent years. As well as entrants from the local Heart of England Clubs, teams travelled from Hereford and the Chiltern Region to support the event and our thanks to everyone who took part. The competition was run with six leagues of four teams, playing three games in the morning rounds. The winners of each League, plus the next two best scorers, progressed to the Gold competition in the afternoon, with the next eight best teams moving to the Silver competition and the lowest scoring teams going into the Bronze. The competition then played a Knockout round, followed by semis and a final in each category. The overall winners of the Gold were Paolo and Sue Infantino from Chiltern who defeated Brian Stote and Nigel Ashby in the final. In the Silver category, Barry Scott and Phil Price beat Peter Taylor and Steph Moulden (Chiltern) and the Bronze competition was won by Ian and Mel Williams from Hereford who beat Lynn Roberts and Russ Davies. Cash prizes were presented to the finalists in each category.
Report courtesy of Whitnash Windmill Petanque Club.
Alexandra Open Mixed Pairs
The third annual Alexandra Mixed pairs competition was held at a suitably decorated Burnt Post on Sunday July 10th. A full complement of 16 teams took part with everybody enjoying a day of fun and relaxed competition in fine dry weather.
Problems showed up, before the day, when one pair was forced to pull out due to ill health, leaving an odd number of teams however a few phone calls over a beer, after Friday night's club games, managed to secure Dan Murphy from Cardiff and Rachel Kelly from Whitnash Windmill PC in the final slot. My grateful thanks to them for stepping in at the last minute. Completing the international feel to the day were Phil Bradshaw and Gay Murphy from Wales and Matthew Edmundson from Gibraltar. OK Matthew had not travelled from Gibraltar especially for the day but had taken a breather from his university studies at Northampton.
As has become the norm for this event the competition was run with three timed games before a buffet lunch in the Burnt Post and a further 2 games after lunch.
Glen Woodward and Hannah Griffin of Whitnash Windmill were delighted to collect their first win in an open competition, being the only pair to win all five games. Second place was taken by Gay Murphy and Phil Bradshaw from Cardiff with Coventry's Keith Turner and Rita David third. Best Junior on the day was Elianne David in 8th. place with her partner Brian Stote, and second best junior was Rachel Kelly in 13th. place with her partner Dan Murphy.
All players who, had not had to leave early, were presented with a Kiwi fruit and the prizes for first and second places were bottles of Brancott Estate wine. Sorry Alexandra but I could not find any Alexandra wine locally!!!
A photograph of the winners is on the gallery page others will follow later and the results are on the results tab.
Tony Thompson
Over 60's Open Pairs
The 2016 Over 60's Open Pairs competition took place at the Burnt Post on wet Tuesday May 10th.
A full quota of 16 teams took part and of the 32 players no less than 20 of them were from clubs other than Coventry.
Competition was fierce, rivalry strong and the results tight with 3 teams winning all 5 games and just 2 points separating the teams. Congratulations to Brian Stote and Nigel Ashby (5 wins +41) who edged out Barry and carol Cox (5 wins +40) and Eileen Sollis and Ian Dyson (5 wins +39). A thoroughly enjoyable day, despite the rain, played in a pleasant but competitive atmosphere.
Tony Thompson
Coventry Pétanque Club at the Earlsdon Festival
For the first time in it's history Coventry Pétanque Club took part in the Earlsdon Festival on May Day this year.
Finding somewhere suitable to play took a lot of searching but eventually we found the driveway, alongside 47 Moor Street with a gravel surface, first objective achieved, just need to get permission now. Negotiating permission involved finding and contacting the tenants of 4 flats and persuading them that they would not need the drive during the festival as roads would be closed so please could we use it. After several visits to site and a few letters we finally got their permission, indeed they were quite happy for us to be there. Monday dawned fine and dry but a little windy as we started to set up. Just as we were securing the gazebo with weights borrowed from Whitnash, a sudden strong gust caught it, twisted it and one of the legs broke off, we really will need to find a solution to this as it is the second time wind has damaged a gazebo.
Footfall was not as expected because we were off to the side of the main Festival in the High Street We had been told that other exhibitors would also be there but they did not materialise so we were a bit out on a limb however all was not gloom as we did get a few visitors, conformed that Coventry Rotary wanted a pétanque competition at the Burnt Post again this year. Several students from King Henry VIII school came along and enjoyed a good half hour with us and said they would rather have pétanque on the sport curriculum than cross country running or hockey. This message was duly passed on to the Deputy Headmaster, who was accompanying them as a drama group presenting the Lion King, and we swapped contact details and his last words were "we could easily provide something like this" Vic Minnett of CWR radio and Brian and I were interviewed live on air, with Vic playing a few boules and getting quite excited, even more excited than she got in the studio last year before our open day. You can listen to the interview here. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03rhqrq Scroll to 2:24:10. Note that there is a break for travel part way through so keep listening to 2:30:00. You will need to copy and paste the URL into your browser.
Another visitor was Tahskar Tiger, who also through some boules so although visitor numbers were not what we had hoped for
we may have made some useful contacts through the day by the time rain curtailed our procedings.
The committee will now have to hold a post mortem on the day, look and learn, which after all was our intention this year as we could not have expected to get it right first time. Better signage would have helped, as would greater footfall.
Onward and upward.
A few photographs are on the gallery page of this site.
Tony Thompson
The third annual Alexandra Mixed pairs competition was held at a suitably decorated Burnt Post on Sunday July 10th. A full complement of 16 teams took part with everybody enjoying a day of fun and relaxed competition in fine dry weather.
Problems showed up, before the day, when one pair was forced to pull out due to ill health, leaving an odd number of teams however a few phone calls over a beer, after Friday night's club games, managed to secure Dan Murphy from Cardiff and Rachel Kelly from Whitnash Windmill PC in the final slot. My grateful thanks to them for stepping in at the last minute. Completing the international feel to the day were Phil Bradshaw and Gay Murphy from Wales and Matthew Edmundson from Gibraltar. OK Matthew had not travelled from Gibraltar especially for the day but had taken a breather from his university studies at Northampton.
As has become the norm for this event the competition was run with three timed games before a buffet lunch in the Burnt Post and a further 2 games after lunch.
Glen Woodward and Hannah Griffin of Whitnash Windmill were delighted to collect their first win in an open competition, being the only pair to win all five games. Second place was taken by Gay Murphy and Phil Bradshaw from Cardiff with Coventry's Keith Turner and Rita David third. Best Junior on the day was Elianne David in 8th. place with her partner Brian Stote, and second best junior was Rachel Kelly in 13th. place with her partner Dan Murphy.
All players who, had not had to leave early, were presented with a Kiwi fruit and the prizes for first and second places were bottles of Brancott Estate wine. Sorry Alexandra but I could not find any Alexandra wine locally!!!
A photograph of the winners is on the gallery page others will follow later and the results are on the results tab.
Tony Thompson
Over 60's Open Pairs
The 2016 Over 60's Open Pairs competition took place at the Burnt Post on wet Tuesday May 10th.
A full quota of 16 teams took part and of the 32 players no less than 20 of them were from clubs other than Coventry.
Competition was fierce, rivalry strong and the results tight with 3 teams winning all 5 games and just 2 points separating the teams. Congratulations to Brian Stote and Nigel Ashby (5 wins +41) who edged out Barry and carol Cox (5 wins +40) and Eileen Sollis and Ian Dyson (5 wins +39). A thoroughly enjoyable day, despite the rain, played in a pleasant but competitive atmosphere.
Tony Thompson
Coventry Pétanque Club at the Earlsdon Festival
For the first time in it's history Coventry Pétanque Club took part in the Earlsdon Festival on May Day this year.
Finding somewhere suitable to play took a lot of searching but eventually we found the driveway, alongside 47 Moor Street with a gravel surface, first objective achieved, just need to get permission now. Negotiating permission involved finding and contacting the tenants of 4 flats and persuading them that they would not need the drive during the festival as roads would be closed so please could we use it. After several visits to site and a few letters we finally got their permission, indeed they were quite happy for us to be there. Monday dawned fine and dry but a little windy as we started to set up. Just as we were securing the gazebo with weights borrowed from Whitnash, a sudden strong gust caught it, twisted it and one of the legs broke off, we really will need to find a solution to this as it is the second time wind has damaged a gazebo.
Footfall was not as expected because we were off to the side of the main Festival in the High Street We had been told that other exhibitors would also be there but they did not materialise so we were a bit out on a limb however all was not gloom as we did get a few visitors, conformed that Coventry Rotary wanted a pétanque competition at the Burnt Post again this year. Several students from King Henry VIII school came along and enjoyed a good half hour with us and said they would rather have pétanque on the sport curriculum than cross country running or hockey. This message was duly passed on to the Deputy Headmaster, who was accompanying them as a drama group presenting the Lion King, and we swapped contact details and his last words were "we could easily provide something like this" Vic Minnett of CWR radio and Brian and I were interviewed live on air, with Vic playing a few boules and getting quite excited, even more excited than she got in the studio last year before our open day. You can listen to the interview here. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03rhqrq Scroll to 2:24:10. Note that there is a break for travel part way through so keep listening to 2:30:00. You will need to copy and paste the URL into your browser.
Another visitor was Tahskar Tiger, who also through some boules so although visitor numbers were not what we had hoped for
we may have made some useful contacts through the day by the time rain curtailed our procedings.
The committee will now have to hold a post mortem on the day, look and learn, which after all was our intention this year as we could not have expected to get it right first time. Better signage would have helped, as would greater footfall.
Onward and upward.
A few photographs are on the gallery page of this site.
Tony Thompson
HoE Summer League Round 1
The 2016 Summer League of the Heart of England Petanque Association got under way on Wednesday April 13th. with both Coventry teams drawing with their opponents. Coventry Leofric entertained Kenilworth's Les Nomades Touregs on their home terrain at the Burnt Post pub, Kenpas Highway, and came away with a very creditable 2-2 draw. A satisfactory result considering they could only field 3 of the 4 team players. In the first pairs match Brian Stote and Tony Thompson took an easy win over Toureg's Paul Studely and David Mason by 13 points to 4 meanwhile Keith Turner manfully took on promising Junior, Connie Bell and experienced Maurice Rendal. Reaching a score of 8 points each at one stage he was finally beaten 8-13 by the visitors. Keith Turner then joined Tony Thompson to take on Connie Bell, Maurice Rendel and David Mason in the Triples but struggled to get started leaving the Kenilworth trio winners by 13 points to 2.
Match result Coventry Leofric 2 wins, 39 points, Kenilworth Les Nomades Touregs 2 wins, 39 points. A small 3 points advantage to the visitors.
Over at Solihull the second division the Coventry Godiva team of Reg and Sheila Eburne, Betty Thompson and Alf Smallman took on the latest recruits to the Heart of England Pétanque Association, from Hampton in Arden. In this match the Coventry team won both pairs games but lost the Singles and Triples, the Singles by 2 points and the Triples by just a single point.
Match result Coventry Godiva 2 wins, 49 points, Hampton, 2 wins 36 points, a 13 point advantage to Godiva.
Tony Thompson
Coventry Tournament at Alexandra January 23rd.2016
Alexandra PC. in New Zealand held their annual competition for the Coventry Trophy on Saturday 23rd. 2016. The following report and the photographs were supplies by David and Maryon Beer, who played in the Alexandra Mixed pairs at the Burnt Post last year.
******
It took us most of yesterday to recover from a very busy weekend of petanque. Colin and I started on Thursday with the marking out of the terrain at the Ice in Line car park. The terrain was in remarkably good condition and didn't require any more preparation. We set up 10 pistes, although only 8 were required for the Coventry Doubles tournament, we needed 10 for the Sunday Fun Day. Friday we went down in the afternoon with all the gear and sound system and had a bit of a practice.
Saturday was cloudy and warm with a gentle northwest breeze. The Coventry tournament kicked off at 11.00 am with 16 teams. We played 5 rounds (50 min + 2 ends) and then planned to have the evening meal before playing the semis and finals in the evening. We had arranged for the local Lions Club to provide us with a buffet meal, but the preparation took longer than expected and we ended up playing the finals before the meal. It was probably better that way as we could have a couple of drinks without worrying about the standard of the petanque deteriorating.
Maryon and I won 4 out of 5 games along with 2 other teams. Marilyn and Colin had a draw with Lindsay and Sandra 3 1/2 wins) , but qualified with a better differential. We lost our first playoff (against the eventual winners), so played off for 3/4 which we won. So we came 3rd overall with which we were quite pleased. The Bunces came 2nd, winning their first game, but losing their second.
The winners were Warren O'Connell and Mark Richardson (with the beard) both of whom play for the Dunedin City Club. (They were the only team that had beaten us all day)
The theme for Sunday was 70's Flower Power. Most people were dressed in appropriate attire with some pretty good outfits. Keith Dixon (Christchurch) and Marilyn Bunce won the prizes for the best outfits. Partners were drawn by matching song titles and I ended up with Marilyn as my partner. Games were 45 minutes + 1 end, played to the background of 70's music from LP's although we had to move the record player inside when the records started to buckle in the heat (30 deg). Marilyn and I won all of our games and came 1st in the tournament.
Today is cool and drizzly, a welcome change from the heat of the last few days. We had 25 mm of rain a week ago and its amazing how quickly the countryside ha greened up.
David Beer
Photoes of the fun day are here and those of the Coventry Tournament are on the Gallery tab.
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The 2016 Summer League of the Heart of England Petanque Association got under way on Wednesday April 13th. with both Coventry teams drawing with their opponents. Coventry Leofric entertained Kenilworth's Les Nomades Touregs on their home terrain at the Burnt Post pub, Kenpas Highway, and came away with a very creditable 2-2 draw. A satisfactory result considering they could only field 3 of the 4 team players. In the first pairs match Brian Stote and Tony Thompson took an easy win over Toureg's Paul Studely and David Mason by 13 points to 4 meanwhile Keith Turner manfully took on promising Junior, Connie Bell and experienced Maurice Rendal. Reaching a score of 8 points each at one stage he was finally beaten 8-13 by the visitors. Keith Turner then joined Tony Thompson to take on Connie Bell, Maurice Rendel and David Mason in the Triples but struggled to get started leaving the Kenilworth trio winners by 13 points to 2.
Match result Coventry Leofric 2 wins, 39 points, Kenilworth Les Nomades Touregs 2 wins, 39 points. A small 3 points advantage to the visitors.
Over at Solihull the second division the Coventry Godiva team of Reg and Sheila Eburne, Betty Thompson and Alf Smallman took on the latest recruits to the Heart of England Pétanque Association, from Hampton in Arden. In this match the Coventry team won both pairs games but lost the Singles and Triples, the Singles by 2 points and the Triples by just a single point.
Match result Coventry Godiva 2 wins, 49 points, Hampton, 2 wins 36 points, a 13 point advantage to Godiva.
Tony Thompson
Coventry Tournament at Alexandra January 23rd.2016
Alexandra PC. in New Zealand held their annual competition for the Coventry Trophy on Saturday 23rd. 2016. The following report and the photographs were supplies by David and Maryon Beer, who played in the Alexandra Mixed pairs at the Burnt Post last year.
******
It took us most of yesterday to recover from a very busy weekend of petanque. Colin and I started on Thursday with the marking out of the terrain at the Ice in Line car park. The terrain was in remarkably good condition and didn't require any more preparation. We set up 10 pistes, although only 8 were required for the Coventry Doubles tournament, we needed 10 for the Sunday Fun Day. Friday we went down in the afternoon with all the gear and sound system and had a bit of a practice.
Saturday was cloudy and warm with a gentle northwest breeze. The Coventry tournament kicked off at 11.00 am with 16 teams. We played 5 rounds (50 min + 2 ends) and then planned to have the evening meal before playing the semis and finals in the evening. We had arranged for the local Lions Club to provide us with a buffet meal, but the preparation took longer than expected and we ended up playing the finals before the meal. It was probably better that way as we could have a couple of drinks without worrying about the standard of the petanque deteriorating.
Maryon and I won 4 out of 5 games along with 2 other teams. Marilyn and Colin had a draw with Lindsay and Sandra 3 1/2 wins) , but qualified with a better differential. We lost our first playoff (against the eventual winners), so played off for 3/4 which we won. So we came 3rd overall with which we were quite pleased. The Bunces came 2nd, winning their first game, but losing their second.
The winners were Warren O'Connell and Mark Richardson (with the beard) both of whom play for the Dunedin City Club. (They were the only team that had beaten us all day)
The theme for Sunday was 70's Flower Power. Most people were dressed in appropriate attire with some pretty good outfits. Keith Dixon (Christchurch) and Marilyn Bunce won the prizes for the best outfits. Partners were drawn by matching song titles and I ended up with Marilyn as my partner. Games were 45 minutes + 1 end, played to the background of 70's music from LP's although we had to move the record player inside when the records started to buckle in the heat (30 deg). Marilyn and I won all of our games and came 1st in the tournament.
Today is cool and drizzly, a welcome change from the heat of the last few days. We had 25 mm of rain a week ago and its amazing how quickly the countryside ha greened up.
David Beer
Photoes of the fun day are here and those of the Coventry Tournament are on the Gallery tab.
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Eliannes early successes
The season has only just got underway but Coventry Junior, Elianne David, is already showing her mark. Playing in the inaugural John Street open melee at Knutton on Sunday March 20th. she managed took the award for the best junior of the day and then followed that up on Easter Monday at the Half Crown Open Easter Triples when she joined Tony and Betty Thompson in lifting the runners up prize from, 13 entries. Easter Monday started with the team taking 2 wins out of 3 in the morning league session, being beaten only by the strong triple of Pete and Teresa Bingham, playing with Richard Powell and going through into the knockout stage with a slim 2 points advantage over their nearest rivals. In the afternoon session the team, playing under the Caterpillars team name, got revenge over Pete, Teresa and Richard when they beat them in close contest in the semi-final but were unable to overcome Terry, Dee and Geoff from Hampton club in the final. I think we would all like to encourage Elianne as she develops her game this year and look forward to seeing her being considered for the England Selection squad in due course.
Tony Thompson 31st. March 2016
The season has only just got underway but Coventry Junior, Elianne David, is already showing her mark. Playing in the inaugural John Street open melee at Knutton on Sunday March 20th. she managed took the award for the best junior of the day and then followed that up on Easter Monday at the Half Crown Open Easter Triples when she joined Tony and Betty Thompson in lifting the runners up prize from, 13 entries. Easter Monday started with the team taking 2 wins out of 3 in the morning league session, being beaten only by the strong triple of Pete and Teresa Bingham, playing with Richard Powell and going through into the knockout stage with a slim 2 points advantage over their nearest rivals. In the afternoon session the team, playing under the Caterpillars team name, got revenge over Pete, Teresa and Richard when they beat them in close contest in the semi-final but were unable to overcome Terry, Dee and Geoff from Hampton club in the final. I think we would all like to encourage Elianne as she develops her game this year and look forward to seeing her being considered for the England Selection squad in due course.
Tony Thompson 31st. March 2016