August 9th British transplant Games
The Westfield Health British Transplant Games 2026 took place in Sheffield this year and Sunday 9th August saw a large event on a car park next to Sheffield Ice Arena. It had been converted in to a 26 lane pétanque terrain with dozens of Concrete Masonry Units (formerly known as breeze blocks) and hundreds of metres of coloured string.
There were 56 pairs entered and almost every team brought along a team of supporters and made a noisy and colourful day of it. The format was a 3 round snake in the morning with semi finals and a final. Medals were there to be won.
Yorkshire Pétanque were asked to run the competition and a team of 13 volunteers turned up to create the terrain and then manage the games. There were issues to resolve as some teams had never played pétanque before whereas some teams were regular competitors in regional events. Some didn’t have any boules and there were plenty of last minute adjustments to the teams but it started just about on time and 3 rounds were completed by lunchtime.
Many thanks to the marshalls who came from pétanque clubs in York, Spen Valley, Huddersfield, Leeds, Ingbirchworth and Chesterfield. Thanks to Heckmondwike Pétanque Club for loaning 30 rings. Yorkshire Pétanque sent 30 jacks. The BTG organisers provided scorers, a PA system, plenty of muscle to create the terrain, dozens of bottles of water and table and chairs for the scorers’ table.
In the afternoon Gavin Marriot, an umpire based in Yorkshire, ran the semi finals and final and the winners were a team from Oxford and the runners up were from Nottingham. Next Year Birmingham.
August 12th Yorkshire League final table
A difficult year for the league. One of the clubs had an internal disagreement and resigned from the League. Another fixture was abandoned after a player died during a fixture. The club concerned were understandably upset and decided not to fulfil any further fixtures so some were left unplayed. It didn’t affect the league table so the season ended incomplete but with no desire to rearrange outstanding fixtures. Next year will probably go ahead but there may be changes to the clubs involved.
For some reason after 3 successful years running the event with Lightcliffe, Ripponden and Shelley winning it there were no entries in 2026.
An eventful year culminated in the Cup final on Monday 24th August at Huddersfield.
Mirfield and Leeds played 5 games and the winner on the day was Leeds and they win
the cup for the 4th consecutive year. It was a close match at the start with teams level
after the triples with a terrific performance from Mirfield Ladies Triple but in the mixed
pairs Leeds swept the board.
Leeds took both trophies home.
August 30th Men v Women challenge
Today was the Men V Women annual competition for the prestigious Grail Trophy. (Named after The Holy Grail obviously!). This is the 4th year that the competition has run and the 3rd win for the men! Numbers were quite closely matched this year and only one gender realignment was needed to even up the sides! Away the lads!
August Bank holiday weekend
It was a great 3 days at Bridlington. There have been lots of great games played by our members. Saturday saw a win for Shirley playing with Ian from Spen Valley coming second in the mixed pairs but Sunday produced a great result for Linda, Dominique and Didier coming first in todays triples Very well done to the three HPC members.
Huddersfield Pétanque 