Monkstone Pétanque Club

It was advertised with the words “It promises to be an eggstremely good melee” and so it was. 19 members turned out on a fine, warm Easter Sunday morning for the annual Easter Egg Melee.

With the  draw done and under the watchful eye of timekeeper Phil Roberts, play got under way, slightly late as the organiser desparately waited in the hope that there would be a latecomer to make up 20.

With Round 1 completed, all the winners were on +2 with the exception of Carol Maroney and Bernard Adshead who established an early lead on +9.

As usual, the potential winners started to surface in Round 2 with only 3 of the 10 First Round winners making it 2 out of 2 – Steve Hawkey and Sean Smith lead the way on +4 with serial melee winner, Phil Roberts, on +3.

Could the 3 leaders consolidate their lead in Round 3 or would one of those lurking on 1 win, some with a much better points difference than the leaders, come through to grab the trophy. When the results were in and the computer had done its stuff, it emerged that Phil had been dropped and only Steve and Sean had won again for 3 wins.

So the top 3 were:

* Incorrectly announced as +31 but subsequently corrected.

Well done to Steve on his fine win but in this eggstraspecial competition everyone is a winner, so it was Easter Eggs all round!

Steve Hawkey receives the trophy from organiser Bernard Adshead

Monkstone today hosted the WPA President’s Cup and their teams who entered made home advantage pay with a a great overall result.

In the main competion, Jill Greenwell, Tony Martin, Mike Jones and Mike Wigg fought their way to the final where they were finally beaten after a valiant effort by a team from SWBRC comprising Len Field, Jean-Yves Robic and Jake Caston.

In the Plate competion, Monkstone went a step further when Bernard Adshead, Vickie Adshead, Jayne Dunn & Roger Griffin also got through to the final but came out victorious against another SWBRC team of Sonia Ford, Simone Ballett & Carl Davies.

Well played to the two finalists and all the other Monkstone players who entered; Sean Smith, Tony Smith, Keith Nott, Frances Ralph, Robin Ralph, Peter David, Ash Seath, Ian Campbell, Roger Green, Len Christian, Peter Kensett, Keith Thomas & Steve Hawkey – nearly 50% of the total entry!

The 2022 Xmas Melee, delayed from December due to appalling weather, was finally played at the Club on Sunday 15 January 2023. In the best Christmas tradition, the 23 members who entered were fortified with mince pies and mulled wine between rounds 1 & 2. The weather this time was fine with exception of a couple of showers before the competition started and a downpour at the start of Round 2 – but, with everyone full of mince pies and mulled wine, did we care?

The competition got underway under leaden skies but no rain. As there were 23 entarnts some games had to be played as triples or double v triple. At the conclusion of the first round their were 11 players on 1 win with Roger “Ben” Bennett and newbie Sharon Paynter leading the way on +10.

Mulled wine & mince pies were consumed in the break and all waited to see if this had any impact on the play in Round 2 – which began in a deluge with some of the less hardy players still sheltering in the clubhouse when the whistle went for the start of the round. Evryone made it out onto the terrain but some of the games were considerably shorter than the alloted 40 minutes. When the scores were in we were down to 7 players on 2 wins. Ben had dropped away but Sharon was still leading with +20 now followed by Tony Smith (+17), Sean Smith (+15) and Keith Nott (+10). Could Sharon hang on with these seasoned players yapping at her heels.

Round 3 was duly played out and it was revealed that Sharon had won but by only 1 point giving her (+21) for the competition which left Tony & Sean well within striking distance and even Keith with an outside chance if he could secure a big win. As the results came in Tony had lost taking him out of the picture but Keith Nott was the opposition. His win by (+ 8) was not enough to dislodge Sharon from the top spot which left only Sean who won his game but by a margin of (+4) which left Sharon as a very popular winner having only taken up the game in the last few months. 

2021 winner Bernard Adshead presents the trophy to Sharon Paynter

FULL RESULTS