Me and Petanque in 2008; the story so far…

So after three years, I finally returned to the Thames Valley Region. Using the experience I gained from playing in the Southern Counties Region, I was hoping to blow TV apart. Ah, I was oh so close.

The TV midweek and weekend leagues have just finished. In Midweek League Division 1 my team, Kodiaks, came 3rd, our other team, Fox and Hounds came 6th – one place above relegation. This was the first year the Fox and Hounds managed to stay in Division 1, as for the last 6 years they have yo-yoed between Division 1 and 2. In the Weekend League our only team, Fox and Hounds, of which I am apart of, came 3rd.

The Kodiaks performance in the midweek league this season has been amazing. Other clubs players have suggested that we have been under-performing for the last few seasons; with 4 games of the season gone, this seemed to be the case as we had only won 2. However, Universities broke up, and a certain member of the Kodiaks team who had not played in the first 4 games came back to Reading- no need to name drop here… From this moment onwards we went on an amazing run of 8 wins; charging up the table at the same time. With 2 games remaining, the top 3 teams, Boyne Hill, Harrow Carreau and Kodiaks were all on the same number of wins. With 2 games left, we had to play Harrow Carreau. This is where it went pear-shaped.

We knew going into the game that even if we won, the chances of winning the league were all too distant; Boyne Hill had a far greater points advantage, and with no disrespect to any other team, we doubted they were going to lose either of their remaining 2 games. Therefore, we had the belief that by beating Harrow Carreau, we would finish second. However, we lost the match 1-4, continuing our apparent hoodoo against Harrow Carreau- I can only ever remember the Kodiaks beating them once before while I have been in the team. We can play fantastically the whole season, yet when it comes to Harrow Carreau, we will play like a bunch of muppets. Our 3rd place finish is still a welcome finish, and despite Boyne Hill’s point advantage, we were up there challenging for the majority of the season. We also ended up only losing 3 games the whole season: 2 against Harrow Carreau and only 1 against Boyne Hill. Boyne Hill went on to win the league, and Harrow Carreau came 2nd.

However, the surprise of the season was how the Fox and Hounds managed to stay up. The reason it was a surprise was the nature of their survival. With half the season gone, F&H only had 1 win to their name, several wins behind the teams above them. They managed to scrape a few wins together to put them in contention, but it all looked doom and gloom going into the final 2 games as they had to play Boyne Hill and Harrow Carreau. Subsequently, they were defeated by Boyne Hill, and with Harrow Carreau still in contention to win the league, it looked as though F&H would lose the last game and face relegation.

The situation on the last day of the season was that if F&H managed to beat Harrow Carreau, then to stand a chance of staying up, they had to rely on Acorns being between; Acorns were playing us, the Kodiaks. Continuing the trend of the season, we won 4-1 – also continuing the trend, I lost one of my matches! While we were playing, we heard news that F&H had beaten Harrow Carreau. Disbelief! We doubted the result, believing that it was a whined up. However several members of the ‘crowd’ started pulling their phones out and making desperate phone calls to find out what had really happened in that game. It turned out that the score was 2-2, so it came down to the last game, which obviously F&H won thanks to Aaron Player’s last two boule. Their team captain Fran said to us after the match that every one of the F&H players was on top form- up for winning the match. Well, it ruined my dad’s plan to award the whole team yo-yo’s at presentation evening!

In the weekend league, despite our finish, it was a disappointing season. We lost several games that we really should have won. Personally, it was amusing to find out that 2 of the games we won when I was not there were both 7-0. See, they do not need me! However, the disappointing aspect was how the season finished. The format of the league was that all ten teams play each other once, then when this is done, 1st will play 2nd, 3rd play 4th and so on once (meaning all teams play 10 games in total). After all the teams had played one another, Boyne Hill had already won the league- they had not lost a match in two years, and three teams were in contention of 2nd place, including us. Before we played our 9th game, some people were conscious that as the teams were so close, if you were 3rd, then you have a much better chance of coming 2nd as you would play 4th and 2nd would had to play 1st. We were 2nd before the 9th game. Now despite the contention of coming 3rd to make it easier to come 2nd, we still wanted to win our last game because we see ourselves as petanque players and not trophy hunters. However, we lost that game 2-5 in terrible playing conditions. As soon as we had lost, we heard rumours that one or two players from the teams who came 1st and 2nd believed we may had thrown that match in order to come 2nd. Although as far as I am concerned, these are only rumours, as I have not heard these people say them, if someone did say this, then I feel insulted. I would never lose a game deliberately just to win a trophy- a runners up trophy at that. All I care about when I play is winning my games. I certainly hope that these rumours are indeed false. Now when it came to 1st verses 2nd, 3rd verses 4th, we managed to win our game convincingly, 5-2 (funnily enough against the team that had beaten us 2-5 the game before). We then heard that the 2nd place team had beaten the 1st place team 6-1! Considering that Boyne Hill, 1st place team, had not lost a weekend match in 2 years and virtually the same squad of players had won the midweek league as well, then I believe something here reeks of fish. I am not challenging the integrity of any player or team, but any rational thinking person would think the same thing. However, there is a possibility that the result was a true reflection of the match, and that Boyne Hill were outplayed and outclassed.

My dad and myself both admit that we did want to come 1st or 2nd, but also that we wanted to do by our own merit, and not have to rely on other teams to win or lose. So despite how fishy the results of the last game may have been, we are bitterer about our team’s defeats, all of which we could had won.

In the wonderful world of UK petanque, leagues are not the only competitions to play in. Also this year, there have been regionals, district competitions, national competitions and club competitions.

The first competition I played in this season was actually down in Portsmouth while I was still at University. It was the Farmhouse Open, and continuing the 5th place finish the year before, my team (Chris and Ed) managed to secure another high finish (I think 5th or 6th). This was to be my last competition down in Southern Counties.

The day after I came back form University, I played my second competition of the year at the Bovingdon Open. I played with my mum and Tony Brown, I went middle, Tony shot and mum went lead point. We had a fantastic day, being one win away from the final. The one game we had lost funnily enough was against my dad’s team, who we should had beaten, even at their own admittance- and they went on to win the final against a team from Harrow. (It seems Kodiaks players can only beat players from Harrow when they are not playing league!).

In the Regional Triples, we woke up to the fact that one of my team mates could not make it. Worried that I was not able to play, we desperately telephoned round to try to find another player. Proving unsuccessful, we went along to the event anyway, hoping that there would be a spare player not in a team. Low and behold, one of our club members, Lolita, had turned up to watch, and instead, ended up playing with Aaron Plumbley and myself. We had a wonderfully shocking day, in that it came down to our last game, where if we had won, we would have been in the final (reminiscent of Bovingdon Open). We however bottled it, and ended up playing in the 3rd/4th playoff, which we lost. In all honesty, I was so depressed when we lost the game to get into the final, I wanted to quit playing. I had never actually won a competition, and to come so close on so many occasions, especially as we had beaten 2 of the top teams in TV that day.

In the regional qualifiers- playing to represent TV in the Interregional Championships- my team had a mixed time. In previous years I have played at number 9, number 4 twice and number 3 for TV, before moving to University were I played at number 9 for Southern Counties. I was secretly hopeful that my team and I could, and should, come in the top 2 at least. I was playing with my dad, mum and a guy named Terry, who strangely had never played in the Interregionals before. The format for the qualifiers was that we play 7 games at the first qualifier, and 5 (one of which is a bye) at the second qualifier. We had a fantastic start, as after the first qualifier, we had won 6 out of 7 and were sitting at the top of the pile, 1 game ahead of everybody else. It appeared that even a reasonable performance at the second qualifier would leave us in the top 3 at least. We started the second qualifier well, winning our first game, so with 3 games left, we were still at number 1. However, we lost all 3. I wanted a noose. Instead of finishing 1st, we came 5th. In reality, my team finishing 5th is good for the region. As TV is playing in division 2, my team should win a majority of games playing other teams number 5’s. This in theory will give TV a good foundation to launch a promotion campaign. Despite this though, I still wanted the number 1 spot- purely out of selfish reasons; I want to play the best teams and beat them.

At a district level, there has been one competition, the Summer Triples. I was playing with my dad and Paul Webb from Boyne Hill- a hell of a strong team. I was confident- and rightly so. On our way to the final, we only lost 1 game- stupidly, but in the wins we had, no team scored more than 5 points against us. We breezed through as such. In the final, we played against a team from Burnham that included 2 beginners (both of whom are not bad players and will do really well if they keep on playing). So we were confident, yet aware that we should not be complacent as they had beaten some good teams on route to the final. I sensed that perhaps I would finally win a competition. I would say I am the best player in TV, and perhaps Britain, to never win a competition, not even a small club competition in my 9 years of playing. Do not misrepresent this fact, I have won many plates, have played in several finals, have won leagues and individual awards, have played for Great Britain and England; I have just never managed to win a competition! Crazy times. In the final, we managed to work ourselves into an 11-6 lead, considering it is first to 13, we were still confident. After a few ends though, we found ourselves 11-11, confused as to what happened- a momentary lapse of concentration, perhaps we were too confident, which is surprising considering our experience and how desperate I was to win. In the end the other teams shooter: Phil Potts, went for a long shot on one of our boules, missed it, hit the coshe which gave them the 2 points they needed, as we were out of boules and the other team had 4 left. Bad times.

Finally, at a national level, I have only played in one competition, the National Qualifiers. I had played in this the last few years, even managing to get into the top 16 last year due to a lower turnout of entries. This year I played with Bob from Boyne Hill, my sister and mum. In theory it is a good team, hard working, and if we were all on form could cause a lot of problems for the other teams. The weird thing though is that we never actually played that bad. Over the 2 qualifiers we went to, I cant remember Bob playing a bad boule, and my sisters pointing was fantastic, and although I had my off ends in the first qualifier, the second qualifier I found my form. Despite this, we got beat 13-0, 13-0 in the first 2 games of the first qualifier, both against teams I have previously beaten. Me getting beat 13-0 is quite rare, but twice in a row- wow, that is a reality check if ever I needed one. We did fight back however, and with the help of a bye (automatic win) managed to record 2 wins from the first qualifier. At the second we managed to secure 3 wins, giving us a grand total of 5 wins out of a possible 12. Not the greatest of achievements, but at least we know we are better than that- just a bad year.

One of the fallbacks from the National Qualifiers was the number of entries. From when I started playing in the qualifiers to the present day, team entries have gone down around 50%. This is not because there are fewer people playing nationally, but because fewer teams want to play nationally. I see two reasons for this. Firstly, whereas previously there were several Great Britain up for grabs, now there are only 3 GB positions to play for. Of course it makes the GB team stronger, but alternatively, it puts people off of going to play because there is not much to play for. Teams would not go just for the experience of playing these top teams because these teams can play the same top teams at opens- where there is a lot more to play for. Secondly, and most importantly, it costs each team £30 per qualifier to play. Therefore, for my team and me, it cost £60 to play- it would had been £90 if we went to the final qualifier. Adding to this, we had costs of travel, and in one situation, the cost of accommodation. It is getting far too expensive for us to play, and with little to play for, there is no point. I have suggested instead that we should use the money on going to open competitions around other regions instead. We can gain the experience from playing good players, find a better atmosphere, have more to play for, play games that are more competitive and save a bit of money. It is sad that this means we are not supporting our national body, but we have to be realistic about this, we do not play this game professionally, we have to play within our limits. The counter to the whole problem of the national qualifiers is that I should go along to the decision-making meetings and change things. Well if I knew of a better alternative, I would, and if the option of going and playing different competitions was not there, I would. In reality I am just bored of playing nationals, it is not fun anymore.

So, if you have managed to read this far, you would had noticed from my summary of the season so far that it had been a mixed one; I have come so close but yet so far. It appears I am just bottling it. Yet I would disagree. I am not bottling it, I am fighting for it, I am concentrating on playing, but really the area I am failing in is in my lack of practise. I hardly ever practise. I turn up and play every Tuesday and every Sunday without practising in between; with this mentality, you can never expect to play well week on week. I know where I need to improve. Maybe one day I will go and practise.

Although the league season is over, the playing season is not, some of the competitions coming up include:

Regional Paris, 27th July
Fox and Hounds Open, 3rd August
Boyne Hill Open, 10th August
Arthur’s Memorial Mixed Triples, 17th August
MTTA Open, 24th August
Interregional Championships, 5th-7th September.

Added to this, we also have the League Cup, the Club Team Championship and the Winter Pairs to look forward to, along with opens in other regions that I may make an appearance at, as well as other national (and international) competitions that remain this season.

So tomorrow is the Regional Pairs, in which I am playing with Aaron Plumbley- fresh from his performance last Tuesday for the F&H in the memorable victory against Harrow Carreau. It should be a good day, and hopefully, I can prise the winners trophy from my dad’s team and put it where he has been keeping it for all to see, but with my name on instead.