Author: huddersfieldpetanque

There’ll be a visitor at the terrain today. The Chief Executive of Age UK (Calderdale & Kirklees branch) is calling to collect a cheque for the money we raised for them last year. She’s also looking at closer links with the club and will be finding out more about the game. Presentation will be at 1245. I’m not sure if she’ll be playing.

Nine hardy members braved the cold and rain to play the February melee. Room was found to play between the puddles on the lower terrain. After the first game and subsequent coffee and biscuit break players went out for the next game. It didn’t last long as the wind and sleet arrived. After looking at the state of the terrain and continuing rain and sleet it was unanimously agreed to abandon the game.

Hopefully March will provide the first completed melee of the season.

The photo shoot with all members wearing their HPC shirt tomorrow is cancelled. The melee will still go ahead but expect wind and rain. Bring waterproofs.

It’s been a long autumn and winter with covid complications but in the next few weeks we have some pairs competitions coming up.

With quite a few new members who may have played in a melee but not a pairs competition here’s an explainer to give you some idea of what it’s like.

Melees have a draw for partners every round and social sessions and club melees use this system. When we play a pairs, triples or even singles competition ideally we should have all teams play all other teams but numbers preclude this so teams play a selection of the other teams. We call this a snake.

Snakes mean that you can choose your partner (or take pot luck on the day if you don’t have one) and stay with them for the 3 rounds. The games are the same – first to 13 – and the winners are determined by total number of games won followed by points difference if there’s a tie. Each team is allocated a number and a pre-drawn sheet shows who you are playing and has space for the results.

February 15th is Valentines Pairs. Members only and no entry fee with chocolates for the winners.

March 20th is Beau’s Charity Pairs where we open this to other local clubs and charge £10 per team. No prize money and all money goes to Beau’s campaign.

There will be other snakes during the year. You can see the playing calendar by clicking in the menu bar and we hope you try out a snake soon. They don’t bite.

First game just about completed then it threw it down. A majority of players in the clubhouse decided to go home. Consequently it was all abandoned and no points were awarded in the Spring Melee competition. We had enough time to take a picture of some of the players.