Hartley CC Petanque News

The club was besieged by Hartley players from an early hour as preparations, not possible the previous night due to a booking in the hall, were carried out. The cleaners had been very helpful in turning in early to leave the hall ready for use by the petanquers.

Cauchy arrived early as we have become accustomed to. We are now convinced they do not adjust their watches when they cross the briny and arrived at 10am claming it was 11am. A few threw some boules on the piste just to show willing, but the rest made their way towards the bar where much needed refreshment was found at the early hour of 10.30.

The speeches started around noon, with much the funniest aspect being the disagreement about how many years the twinning had been going. Peter Bryant on behalf of Hartley declared that the alliance had been alive for 10 years and indeed presented a suitable engraved silver plate to John-Robert d'Holland of Cauchy to mark the occasion. John-Robert on his part invited Hartley to a special celebration next year at Cauchy to mark 10 years. Both were correct of course with the English counting "fence posts" and the French counting "fence panels" if you follow my drift.

A splendid lunch followed, fish pie or lamb hot-pot for the main course and sweets and cheese and biscuits for pud. All was over fairly early and we had to place a call to Charles Fribbens, our competition controller for the day, to make an early appearance. He duly did and we started playing at around 2pm. Although the competition was planned as 4 rounds and a final, we never really expected to complete all four, but with Charles' good stewardship the full tournament was accomplished.

The overall score as calculated by omitting the last 2 Hartley teams (to make it 14 on each side) was 30 games to Hartley and 28 to Cauchy. However, this is not really fair and a fairer method is to include all Hartley results and to discount 4 wins which are the 4 games between Hartley teams. This gives a score of 28 games each and an honourable draw. The best Hartley team and the best Cauchy team on the day then played out a final which was won by Hartley 13 -5, so we still achieved the victory. The winning Hartley team was Dick Deamer, Vanessa Layton and Hazel Teale.

Back then to the clubhouse for supper, which was the leftovers from lunch! Practically all the food was eaten and enjoyed by the players from both sides. A special thank you to those cooks who participated.

Prize giving preceded the meal, and "Allouetta" by Jim Carr, "We'll meet again" by Ann Jennings, "The Internationale" by the big Italian, and a rather poor attempt at "Land of Hope and Glory" brought the day to an end.