2013 - a busy year so far

Any regular readers of this blog have probably disappeared through inertia on my part so for that I apologise.  With so much going on recently my own blog has suffered a bit but that should change from now on.

In October 2012 I was elected President of the Scottish Petanque Association, a real honour but it is not without its challenges either.  I have to say the SPA has a great team at its helm - some real 'do-ers' - which does make the job a pleasure.  We have the task of promoting what is very much a minority sport and this can be a thankless task.  However I am pleased to say that we are gradually making in-roads where budgets and time will allow.

Our biggest task  is to increase take up of our sport in Scotland.  Much of my activity this year has been focused on meeting people who are interested in introducing petanque to their community.  This typically involves arranging open days with petanque 'come and try' sessions or competitions.  Enquries from new groups have been strong this year (a total of 4 groups dotted around the country) and we are in regular contact with all of them.

At my own club this year has been very busy, not least because we built our own piste in Penicuik Park.  The new piste took around 6 weeks to complete and was finished on Good Friday, just in time for us to host an Easter Day fun afternoon.  Since then we have built our membership and now have a regular core of players attending on Sundays.  We have also started junior coaching sessions on Wednesday evenings during the summer - we are hopeful that a few youngsters will take up the sport regularly and join our club. We coached almost 230 high school pupils in May and we are planning to make that a regular event.

Penicuik Piste mid-construction

Back to national matters and the season is in full swing with the Grand Prix Series now decided - won by my good friends from Inverleith. The national Singles, Doubles and Shooting are at the end of July and Triples at my home club on 1st September.  In May the SPA travelled to Wales to defend the Celtic Challenge - sadly we didn't quite manage it despite clocking up an impressive haul of 32 wins.  Scotland will host in 2014 and we'll be looking for revenge!

Scotland Squad - 2013 Celtic Challenge - Wales

On 10th & 11th August Inverleith Petanque Club are hosting the Home Nations.  It looks like its going to be a cracker, seeing that it coincides with the Edinburgh Festival.  I wish Inverleith PC the very best of luck!

New Balls Please

I got some new boules for Christmas.  Gave them a try last Sunday and I'm very pleased with them.  Sometimes a new set of boules feel strange in the hand due to the smooth finish which takes a while to wear.  These have microgrooves machined onto the surface, so there is better grip from the outset.

Anyway, I hit quite a lot and interestingly got more carreaux than usual.

Very pleased, thanks Unibloc!http://www.petanqueshop.com/unibloc-bronze-pi-403.html?image=0&osCsid=ccb76ac5078e845211bf140935e95bba

Penicuik Progress

So, Penicuik is up and running and we are now in discussions with the local council about building a purpose built terrain in a park there.  Hopefully this will come to fruition which will give us a great facility to allow us to develop our activities and grow.

The Scottish Singles, Shooting and Pairs competitions are the weekend after next.  It's been a while since I played in a competition and I'm really looking forward to it.  Better get in some practice!

The Home Nations in Nottingham is looming in August and, after first thinking I wasn't able to play I got a nice surprise of some sponsorship from Midlothian Council which means I can.  I am really looking forward to a challenging weekend there.  For the first time in years there is a feeling that Scotland could take something from the competition following our success at the Celtic Challenge in May.  Hopefully we will be able to wrestle the trophy from England, who have won it every year. 

Penicuik Petanque Club

See our new website www.penicuikpetanque.org.uk . We are recruiting new members in time for Spring 2011 so if you are interested please contact us and get involved.

Scottish Masters

So, the biggest competition of the year last weekend. This competition is the culmination of the year's international qualifiers. The 12 teams from the Grand Prix series play in a weekend long 'round robin. The top team from the Masters will represent Scotland in the European Men's Championship in Sweden next year. The top 8 teams will also form the Scotland Squad for next year's Celtic Challenge and Home Nations.

So, 12 teams descended upon Troon PC to contest this year's Masters. A lot to play for this year.

Our first game, against Les Champignons, aka John W, Mags and Monty. We just didn't get going at all and lost to 10. Not a good start, but with another 10 games left we would have an opportunity to pull it back.

We won the next 2 games, leaving us with 2 wins at lunch on Saturday. Our main rivals, The Sex Pisteols, were on top form, dropping only 6 points all morning. It would take something special for us to overtake them now.

By the close of play on the Saturday we were lying in second place overall. 5 wins from 6. The Pisteols won all of their games and had an obscene points difference. So, we'd realistically have to rely on them losing a game the following day and us winning all by a big margin, to even stand a chance.

By lunch on the Sunday, the Pisteols and ourselves were tied! We won all of our morning games convincingly (we dropped only 6 points all morning), meanwhile the Pisteols form dipped and they lost heavily to The Bears. We were tied on 8 wins and +64 points difference!

Second last game of the competition was the crunch. Us versus the Pisteols. The winner would most likely win the competition overall. It was a pretty open game to begin with, high scoring ends meant, after 4 ends the score was 7-7. So we were still tied.

2 bad ends from us, however, was enough to cause us to lost 13-7.

On to our last game. By this time we knew we had secured second place and we couldn't achieve 1st. So we just relaxed and had a bit of fun. We lost to 10.

So, second in the Masters. A good result, but I have to admit to being quite disappointed that we didn't win having put ourselves in contention on Sunday morning.

It's started!

Petanque may very well be on its way to Penicuik.  I wasn't aware that the Town is twinned with a town in Provence (Petanque's home).  I am hopeful that I will be able to find some willing people to help me develop a club which will benefit the Penicuik community, as well as give me some people to play with!

Grand Prix 2

18 teams showed up at Inverness PC for the second of the 3 round qualifier for the Scottish Masters title.  We had quite a hard draw, playing against 3 teams from Fochabers/Aberdeen who can all be a real challenge.

The day started quite well, winning our first two games (although we didn;t play that well in all honesty).  We lost our 3rd game 7-13 to the eventual winners - The Pisteols who won all of theirs.

On to the afternoon and after 3 close games, we came out with 5 wins overall, and third place.  Not at all bad and a real improvement compared to previous weekends!

We're now sitting 3rd in the overall rankings which is great.  Hopefully we can push on to get second or even first???

Thanks for reading.