Monkstone Pétanque Club

On Thursday 11 May 2023, the club were pleased to welcome our friends from Royal Wootton Bassett PC (RWB) to continue the annual friendly, but competitive, encounter that had begun last year. As for the previous match, it was agreed that the format for each leg would be two rounds of doubles and two rounds of triples, that’s 20 games per leg or 40 in total, all of which would be timed. Our team comprised:

Roger Griffin, Bernard Adshead, Vickie Adshead, Roger Green, Gill Clark, Ash Seath, Beryl McCarthy, Ian McCarthy, Len Christian, Carol Maroney, John Maroney, Frances Ralph & Robin Ralph.

After a very warm welcome from Roger Griffin to Alan McInnes and his team, and having enjoyed coffee and a tray of sausage rolls, we started the first round of doubles.

The pistes were rock hard and proved to be difficult for everyone, including the Monkstone (MPC) players, to get to grips with. After some good play, however, MPC managed to emerge from the first round with a lead of 5-1 in games, with a  points difference of 74-42.

On to the 2nd round and RWB showed that they were settling to our pistes and achieved a 3-3 tie and a points difference of 53-54 in their favour.

Doubles Scores: MPC 8 [126] – 4 [95] RWB 

We then broke for an excellent lunch, catered by Joy Giffin & Pauline Seath, and a swift half. In the afternoon the first round of triples got underway and MPC recovered some of the momentum from the 1st round of doubles taking this round by 3-1 in games, with a  points difference of 46-36.

MPC were hoping for a similar or better result in the 2nd round of triples to give them a comfortable lead to take to RWB in 2 weeks as we had lost there last year before winning in Cardiff and the match overll. RWB were determined to stop us and with some smart play managed to tie the round at 2-2 with a points difference of 42-37 in their favour.

Triples Scores: MPC 5 [83] – 3 [78] RWB

So MPC had won the day with a slender lead of only 6 games in 20. Will this be enough to take the overall match after the 2nd leg at RWB on 25 May 2023? Time will tell!

First Leg Final Scores: MPC 13 [209] – 7 [173] RWB

All the adieux were said, but not before Alan McInnes presented MPC with a RWB pennant.

Score Sheet

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!