Regional Qualifier 3 held at Hartley in glorious weather
03 June 2007
What a contrast to last weekend. Whereas one week ago our players were quitting Bury St Edmunds before they grew white fur and started eating fish, this week the first item out of the boule bag was the sun-tan lotion.
Temperatures soared to the mid twenties and Hartley funds obviously stretched to an air display as the Red Arrows buzzed the pistes around ten to five, as arranged, to put off the opposition teams.
Unfortunately, this ruse, expensive as it must have been, didn't work as the only two wholly Hartley teams who played did not quite reach the dizzy heights of maximum wins in the afternoon Swiss.
What a shame after all Hartley players made the cut and reached the afternoon main competition. However, with only 22 teams registering (perhaps they knew that Mag's Munchery would be closed and stayed home to get their bacon butties), it meant that only 6 teams went into the Plate. Numbers were possibly down as the EPA Triples had been held the previous day at Crondall in Hampshire and, of course, all good pétanque lovers were hung over with the Pastis and Pernod "hangovers from hell" after celebrating World Pétanque Day (2nd of June for those few of you who somehow missed this).
Nevertheless, good morning results helped Hartley Shaw (Colin Senneck, Mick Nash, Joyce Nash) and MJL (Martyn Fribbens, John Bradley, Linda Bradley) cruise into the Main with its promise of big regional qualifying points. The unfortunate reality is that Hartley Shaw won 2 games out of 4 in the afternoon and made 9th place (-5 points difference) and MJL made 0 wins out of 4 with a points difference that was irrelevant as they came last.
Jean-Louis Guiot and his FCUK team, who thus far had more reason to rearrange the letters of their name than celebrate, turned in a more respectable 7th place with 2 wins (+3). Charles Fribbens and his "junior" team once more annoyed the adult contenders by taking valuable points from them because they were better than at least one team of adults. They came 13th with 1 win and -7 points.
Luckiest of all (and yet unable to take full advantage) were Luke Fribbens and his colleagues in "Team Yellow". Somehow, after losing two of three in the morning (one of which was against Luke's and team-mate Jenny Cooter's siblings in the BTY team) they came back in the afternoon to win their first two matches and ended up 11th with 2 wins and -11 points. That keeps them in contention for a top 4 finish.
Overall the Hartley players and teams now are set in the Regional Qualifiers as follows
Team Yellow (Luke Fribbens)
=2nd
BTY (Charles Fribbens) 10th
Hartley Shaw (Colin Senneck, Mick Nash, Joyce Nash) 13th
FCUK (Jean-Louis Guiot) 19th
MJL (Martyn Fribbens, John Bradley, Linda Bradley) 21st
Eagles (Ron and Mags Yates, John and Eileen Fowers) =25th
The top eight teams will represent Kent in the first division at the Inter-Regional competition at Brean and teams 9-12 will be the Kent squad in the Challenge Shield competition at the same competition. In addition, the top teams will represent Kent at the annual Nord Maritime competition in northern France on 11th August and the top seven teams, plus a junior team, will be subsidised to compete in either the Dunkerquoise or Nismes competitions in France/Belgium later in the year.
The fourth and final qualifier is to be held at Lordswood on 22nd July 2007 when those still in the hunt will be seeking final points to capture the top qualifying places. It remains to be seen if M. Guiot, Mr. Fribbens, the Bradleys, the Yates and the Fowers will rearrange their social diaries for that day.
The only complaints heard on Sunday (apart from the aerial interruptions) were the lack of bacon rolls and the lunch timing and arrangements which hopefully will be resolved next year.