This new competition played for the first time on Sunday proved to be a ‘Marmite’ event. You either loved it or hated it! A good turnout of members tried it and lovers/haters were pretty equally split.
The game is quite simple. Each team starts on 7-7 and first to 13 wins. If a player points past the coche they lose 1 point instantly. Players can shoot if they declare in advance that they’re shooting.
The format is really a training game to encourage players to avoid pointing past the jack by penalising them if they do so. Shooters are allowed to pass the jack without penalty but they must declare that they are shooting before throwing their boule.
Some members quickly realised that you could declare that you were going to shoot then actually point. If your boule then passed the jack you didn’t loose a point. Why do that? As a training game winning is not the prime purpose so there is really no need to ‘bend the rules’.
Lessons were learnt particularly the need to have timed games. Because points can be lost as quickly as gained games could potentially go on for hours! Also scores will not be recorded and no prizes offered. So the rules can remain ‘unbent’.
We will repeat the format sometime in the future for the Marmite lovers alongside social play for the haters!
Today members dedicated themselves to raising money for an Alzheimers Charity in memory of Roy’s wife Liz who suffered from this and it would have been her 69th birthday today.
We played a 3 round melee with a £2 entry fee. This plus the contents of a donations bucket and the proceeds from a raffle raised a fantastic £114 and we enjoyed a great competition on a balmy afternoon where some members stripped down to T shirts. Three players won all their games. 3rd was Brendan, 2nd was Sue but winner of the Gold medal with the best points difference was Marie.
Not a Vanarama National League North fixture from the eighties but a keenly fought league style fixture today. A pennine league has been set up to start next Spring and Rochdale is currently a collection of pubs and sports clubs who operate their own league but are branching out. They wanted to try our format as used in West Yorkshire League so this fixture was arranged. It was basically two league fixtures side by side. Both clubs supplied 2 teams of 6 and played 2 Triples followed by 3 doubles.
Gaz from Rochdale and Robin from Huddersfield show off the small but perfect trophy.
It had been wet for some time leading up to the fixture and team captains were in touch up to the last minute as to whether it would go ahead. Finally at 0830 this morning the email arrived from Huddersfield Captain. “They’re mad keen to play so we’re going ahead”
So we all turned up at the terrain this morning. It was wet but not Uber wet. Drizzle that turned into Mizzle but it didn’t stop the game going ahead. It dried up about lunchtime.
Although this was Rochdale Town’s first trip outside Lancashire they’re an impressive outfit. Some have played at Heckmondwike and Leeds and some of their squad are very young. As Brendan observed “The difference between the teams is about 35 years”.
But the old men (and old women) won the day. The A team fixture was 3-2 in games with dead level on points but the B team game was 5-0 and a larger points difference.
This new competition played for the first time on Sunday proved to be a ‘Marmite’ event. You either loved it or hated it! A good turnout of members tried it and lovers/haters were pretty equally split.
Huddersfield Pétanque 