KENT PETANQUE ASSOCIATION

Transcription

1 KENT PETANQUE ASSOCIATION ISSUE No.75 SEPTEMBER 2012 At MILL RYTHE HOLIDAY VILLAGE Hayling Island Hampshire, on the weekend of 15/16th September A new first time venue organised by Isle of Wight Tours in partnership with the E.P.A. Management Committee. The previous Finals were held at Brean Sands Holiday camp since Mill Rythe.around about a two hour drive from Kent on good and pleasant roads with time benefiting from the recently opened Hindhead tunnel. On arrival, the first impressions were good.in fact very good. Clean, tidy, smart and very helpful staff, and the apparent lack of litter. Most of the buildings and accommodation were well maintained and in a good state of decoration. Moaning was not part of the welcome. The Kent players were given the choice of accommodation of chalets at the Mill Rythe Holiday Village, or caravans at Parkdean Site a five minute drive away. Those who stayed in the caravans were provided with regular bus transport between the caravan site and Mill Rythe, they were also given the option of using the facilities at Mill Rythe. continued KPA GAZETTE Page 1

2 All Kent players were provided with a cash grant of 55 by the KPA towards the cost of accommodation. Accommodation for the Kent Juniors was covered in full by the KPA. The cost of staying at Mill Rythe was 129 per head for the weekend inclusive of accommodation and evening meals and breakfast, from dinner on Friday night to breakfast on Monday morning, inclusive of evening entertainment. Excellent value for money. Drinks, food and snacks were available at reasonable prices with a selection of wines at 7.99 a bottle. For those ladies accompanying players there was an option of a free a coach journey into Chichester on the Saturday, and a trip into Portsmouth on the Sunday. A refreshments marquee was located close to the playing terrains, that provided drinks, hog roast and bar-b-que. There was a total of 12 Kent triples teams taking part, 8 in the main competition and 4 teams in the Challenge competition making a total of 43 adult players plus the Junior team, with the seniors being managed by Mick and Joyce Nash, and the Juniors managed by Richard King. Games commenced before 9am on the Saturday morning with 4 games being KPA GAZETTE Page 2

3 played in the morning session and 3 games being played in the afternoon session. Five games were played on Sunday. The pistes were laid anew for this weekend s competition, producing variable playing surfaces, that proved interesting. Starting in June of this year, Mill Rythe has invested over 20,000 in purpose built petanque facilities. They have also recently spent a great deal of money in overall improvements and renovations. Most of the chalets have been redecorated and refurnished, and the remainder await similar improvements in the very near future. All-in-all..Isle of Wight Tours, the E.P.A. and the management and staff of Mill Rythe Holiday Village can take credit for putting on an excellent event..a great weekend. The full results details for the three competitions can be found on the E.P.A. web-site. Chiltern Region were crowned champions of the main InterRegional Championships, and Chiltern Region also finished top of the Challenge Competition. KPA GAZETTE Page 3

4 The players for the Kent teams were as follows The Inter-Regional Championship 2012 Competition Playing KENT TEAM #1 Lee Jamieson, Angie Jamieson, Chris Watkins, Gary Atkinson KENT TEAM #2 Scott Ashby, Nic Baxter, and Matt Whatley KENT TEAM #3 Fay Golder, Steve Golder, Rob Harvey, and Dean Ashby KENT TEAM #4 Alex Bruce, Neil Philips, Phil Jarrett, Geoff Booth KENT TEAM #5 Matt Lomas, Humphrey White, Andy Dunstall, and Chris Perry KENT TEAM #6 Trevor Gordon, Martin Edwards, Keith Atkinson, and Kevin Atkinson KENT TEAM #7 Dave Hurren, Matt Horrigan, Simon Mannering and Richard Spillet KENT TEAM #8 Charlie Shrimpton, Matt Shrimpton, Kris Smith and Richard Wenban The Inter Regional Challenge Trophy 2012 KENT TEAM #1 Mike Sharrett, Barbara Sharrett, John Holbourn KENT TEAM #2 John Middleton, Paul Collins, John Hines KENT TEAM #3 Alan Cregeen, Michele Cregeen, Brian King, and Sheila King KENT TEAM #4 Bob Gaywood, Jean Louis Guiot, Martin Eggleton The Inter-Regional Junior Competition 2012 KENT TEAM Charlie Horrigan, Alex Spillet, Ben Thompson and Jake Mannering. The KENT TEAM came third in the main InterRegionals Championship, and the other KENT TEAM came second in the Challenge Trophy Competition. The KENT JUNIOR TEAM performed extremely well for their age and minimal experience of top level competition. The top Kent team with the most wins and points for the weekend was.. Team #1- Lee Jamieson, Angie Jamieson, Chris Watkins and Gary Atkinson. KPA GAZETTE Page 4

5 The Meadow Doubles competition took place on Sunday 26th August. Probably because it s held on a bank holiday weekend in the middle of the school holidays it is the least attended of all the Meadow competitions but it still attracted a better than average 30 teams. There was a real international feel to the event which included two teams of international players from the Boule Hedebo club in Denmark, two international pairings from Wales, a team of Moroccans as well as our own resident Italian and the recently crowned English Champions. With fine weather, unusual in itself for a British Bank Holiday weekend, the morning leagues progressed quickly to leave the top 16 teams for the afternoon s main knockout competition with the remaining 14 teams going into the plate. In a very high quality main event the quarter-finalists were: Rejects Dave Hurren and Matt Horrigan (defending champions) v Denmark 1 Morten Per Laursen and Sune Vig (Danish Internationals). Team Jones Rowland Jones and Kevin Spillett (English champions) v Meadow 55 Ang and Lee Jamieson (English Over 55 champions). Denmark 2 Christian Nielsen and Morton Saxhild-Hansen (Danish Internationals) v Cardiff East Phil Bradshaw & Ian Bailey (Welsh Internationals) GeorgeWood Chris Watkins and Gary Atkinson (2nd in English Championships) v Terraboule Jack Blows & Peter Taylor (Jack was 3rd in English Championships). Some top quality play saw Denmark 1, Team Jones, Cardiff East and Terraboule progress through to the semifinals. In a surprisingly one sided semi-final Team Jones turned on the style to beat Denmark 1 convincingly while Cardiff East overcame the Chiltern pairing of Jack and Peter to reach the final. In the final the Meadow pair of Jones and Spillett went into an early lead but were pegged back before the Welsh pairing of Bradshaw and Bailey won a big end of 5 to see them surge into an unassailable lead before going on to take the title and the top cash prize of 160. Team Morocco won the Plate final beating Sheila King and Michelle Cregeen (George/ The event winners...ian BAILEY and PHIL BRADSHAW playing as Cardiff East Northwood) in the final. Report and photo by MARK COOTER SUMMER LEAGUE. Nearly over with just a few matches to play. So far.meadow P.C. teams are topping Divisions 1 & 2,and the two Lamb P.C. teams are topping divisions 7 & 8. Last scheduled match day is Wednesday 19th Sept. with several teams still to play 4 matches, and one team to play 5 matches..one way or another! Don t forget that the K.P.L. end of season Annual General Meeting is combined with the K.PA. General meeting to be held on 15th November at Lordswood Sports and Social Club. KPA GAZETTE Page 5

6 REPORT AND PHOTO S BY LEE JAMIESON Since winning the EPA Veterans Championship back in July with Barry Scott, Angie and I had been looking forward to representing England in the European Veterans Championship in Denmark and the the alarm going off at 5 a.m. on Friday signalled the waiting was over. A quick shower, breakfast, cases in the car and we were off. After parking the car we arrived at Gatwick South departure terminal at 7.15, where we met Barry and Di Scott and Richard Baker, our manager. Our plane was on time and after an hour and three-quarters flight we touched down in a sunny/warm Copenhagen. A minibus was waiting for us and after 20 minutes we arrived at our hotel. Had a pleasant al fresco light lunch while waiting for our rooms. Then after unpacking and a quick change of clothes we had a five minute drive in the minibus down to the venue at the Hvidovre Petanque Club for a look around and a bit of practice. Here we found 10 large internationally sized pistes with a large grandstand on one side plus two large practice areas. The club's seven piste indoor bouledrome had been converted into the catering centre and a bar set up next to the grandstand. With the flags of all the 21 nations taking part fluttering in the breeze alongside the terrains, the set up looked most impressive. Our practice session showed us that most of the terrains were quite firm with quite a lot of small irregular shaped chippings but in the middle of each lane there were soft sandy areas where pointing boules tended to die. Shooting wise the surface was a little forgiving with shots landing in line a little short normally hitting the target but shooting along the ground (á la rafle) rarely work. After our practice session it was back to the hotel to get changed ready for the opening reception and draw in a local civic hall/ gymnasium where we were drawn in Group B alongside Sweden, Andorra and Jersey. Then after a pleasant buffet and a couple of drinks socialising with the other teams it was back to the hotel for an early night ready for the early start next morning. Next morning it was team breakfast at 7.15 and then down to the terrains for the opening ceremony/parade at Then at 9.00 play commenced with our first opponents being our friends from Jersey. After a slow start, going 0-2 down, we started to play our normal game and ran out easy winners Our next opponents were Andorra and after watching them practising we had made them one of the favourites alongside Spain and Monaco. We therefore expected a ANGIE & LOU-LOU 1 R England & Spain R difficult game but we played well, took control of the game, and ran out winners As Andorra had previously lost to Sweden, our victory removed one of the favourites from the main competition. As Jersey had lost their second game to Sweden we knew we had qualified irrespective of how we did against Sweden in our third game which turned out to be a good job, because we were well beaten to 3. We played them on the roughest terrain which did not suit our pointing style and Sweden consistently outpointed us, to be deserved winners. Qualifying in second pace behind Sweden meant we went into the last 12 in a group of three with Holland and the Czech Republic. The first game against the strong Dutch team was I think our best game with all three of us playing well to run out 13-6 winners. continued KPA GAZETTE Page 6

7 Medals for Team England Team England carry the flag Team England, LEE, ANGIE & BARRY COPENHAGEN VETERANS CHAMPIONSHIPS We then had to sit out while Holland played the Czech Republic which turned out to be a titanic struggle with Holland winning after 2½ hours. Although we now knew that scoring 1 point against the Czech would be enough to qualify for the quarter finals we went into the game trying to win but we just weren't at the races. I don't know if it was the 3 hour wait or knowing we had already qualified but we played really poorly (not forgetting that the Czechs played well) losing So at the end of the first day we went back to the hotel for another early night, pleased we had achieved what we had set out to do by reaching the quarters but disappointed not to win the league, as this meant we would face one of the main favourites, Spain, in the quarters. Next day we were back at the terrains bright and early ready to face Spain at We started poorly and went 0-6 down before playing well to come back to 6-9 and then 9-9, and this despite missing chances to take more points. Spain were looking worried and we knew we were in with a chance but with bad timing we then had two loose ends to allow a relieved Spain to run out 13-9 winners. This sadly brought out participation to an end. In the other quarters Monaco beat Denmark 13-0, Germany beat Sweden 13-2 and Finland beat the Czech Republic In the semis Germany beat the surprise team Finland and Spain pointed in six boules on the last end to beat a stunned Monaco 13-10! The final was, after the first three or four ends, a pretty one sided affair with Spain running out 13-3 winners. The medal presentation was very professional with a podium for the top four teams, national flags, the Spanish national anthem and of course the obligatory bottles of champagne! The closing dinner that evening, again in the indoor bouledrome, was like the rest of the tournament, excellent, with a lovely buffet meal followed by the presentation of medals for players, organisers and officials. The event then came to a close with the Danish organisers hoping we would all meet again in two years time in Germany. The trip home next morning went like the rest of the event - smoothly with no problems. So how can we sum up these first European Championships for Veterans. In one word fantastic, one of the best I have been to, and without doubt a great success. The Danish Petanque Association and the Hvidovre Petanque Club are to be congratulated on the excellent venue, accommodation, catering and organisation. continued KPA GAZETTE Page 7

8 COPENHAGEN VETERANS CHAMPIONSHIPS They even managed to organise warm and sunny weather for the three days. I am sure everyone enjoyed the tournament, I know we certainly did, and we hope we can qualify again for the next one in Germany in two years time. The standard of play was on the whole quite high with no really weak teams. This surprised me as the eastern European countries have only been playing petanque for a relatively short time. I would say about half were of a good (English) regional standard, 8 to 10 of Top 8 standard with Spain and Monaco being by far the best of these. I must mention here the shooter of the Monaco team - Luis (Lu-Lu) De Los Reyes. A lovely man of 86 years who played in every game with a hit rate any English shooter would be proud of. At 63, I am a mere youngster, who perhaps has yet to peak! Regarding our own performance I would say that on the whole we were quite pleased. However despite achieving our goal of reaching the quarters, we were a little disappointment because we know that if we had taken our chances against Spain, we could have progressed even further. Still on the positive side we did play some good boules, impressed quite a few teams/people and hopefully raised the profile of English petanque. I cannot finish this report without saying a big thank you for the generous financial assistance given to Angie and myself by our club the Meadows and the Kent Petanque Association. This was very helpful in lessoning the financial burden of the substantial contribution we had to make towards the cost of the trip to Denmark. The atmosphere of an International Championship Prior to the Regional Triples Finals at Mill Rythe, two Kent players dropped-out of the competition at short notice, a couple of days before the weekend. As most of the teams had four players, this occurrence did not cause a problem. However!...it is a thought and maybe for consideration for the KPA to have a short-list of say, a half-a-dozen reserves, who would be willing to play at very short notice. Generally, most teams benefit for having 4 players in a triples team, not least of all the tiring effect of playing 12 games over a weekend. To have a rested player available can give a boost to a tiring team. It was noticed that there was an imbalance of ability of teams in some matches at Mill Rythe. Regions playing committees seed their 8 teams, which ideally will produce an overall, even spread of competitive games. However.as in previous years...sports people being what they are, tend to slightly bend the ideals to suit their own ideals and requirements, as was obvious when watching a few games where a team rated #8 for a particular Region should clearly have been playing at a much higher rating. What sporting pleasure does a wrongly placed high ability team get by playing and thrashing a correctly lower rated team 13 points to zero? KPA GAZETTE Page 8

9 If ever there were good reasons for attending a KPA Management Meeting at Tovil, this was one of those occasions where a couple of subjects that affect the membership and membership finances were discussed..and as if there was prior warning there was a very good turn out of committee members and KPA members willing to add voice to the discussions. In attendance were.d.baxter, C.Senneck, E.Hatfield, M.Weston, P.Abbitt, R.Spillet, K.Spillet, K.Buchan, M.Nash, A.Eggleton (part time), S.Golder, F.Golder, C.Cooter and R.Yates. A few notes for information, not minutes. The accounts to date stand at..kpa Accumulated Fund and the KPA Junior fund Petanque car stickers will be picked-up at Hayling Island for distribution to KPA members. Portable or fixed canopy covers for piste and player weather protection are being investigated. A total of 56 new polo shirts are on order for the Kent players at Hayling Island and will be red with a white side panel. Some spare old (red and black panel) polo shirts are also required and will be provided on loan from members. Agreed generally that Kent team strip needs to be investigated for next year, style, colour, cost, etc. All reservations for accommodation at Mill Rythe have been made and all players have received a 55 grant. Arrangements for the Kent Classic are in hand with some early bookings, a team from Denmark and probably a team from France will attend. A bar-b-que will be provided by Lordswood. Equation 14months = 12months = 9months = heated discussion. The EPA have changed the time period for players Licence, to run from 1st January to 31st December. Current licences expire on 28th February It could be argued.and it was heatedly expressed that the licence for year 2013 will be a 10month licence, from 1st March until 31st December..a condition as would be perceived as a loss by the what do we get for our EPA Licence fee, brigade.with some justification. However.whatever the cut off dates.the EPA/KPA Licence will run for a year, as it always has. The KPA will contact the EPA for clarification with a suggestion that the licence period should run for a period from 1st Jan (year 1) to 28th Feb (year 2). Another good heated debate.re-the forthcoming Chairman s Cup. One interpretation put forward was, that the Chairman s Cup was introduced a few years ago to encourage more players to play in the Regional Qualifiers, and in particular the lesser ability players who may not qualify for the Regional Finals. In other words players who play in one or more Regional Qualifier and do not qualify for the finals will be eligible to play in the free entry, cash prize Chairman s Cup. However this year there are some players who have qualified to play in the Finals, and for their own reasons have chosen not to play in the finals, and have subsequently been invited to play in the Chairman s Cup. Invitations to play in the Chairman s Cup to be clarified and prospective players are to be notified. And yet another interesting debate. KPA cash grants to Clubs. Two senior long time KPA members put forward a preliminary proposal for a KPA grant to enlarge and improve some existing petanque facilities. Interesting, in the sense that a petanque Club does not yet exist at the venue in question, although there are two existing pistes as a...continued KPA GAZETTE Page 9

10 result of a good deal of time and money being spent by the pub landlord a couple of years ago. Also interesting in so far that existing KPA members started two winter league teams a couple of years ago at the same venue that did not grow into a fully operating petanque club. The KPA Guidelines for Grants to Clubs was referred to. The Committee noted that at present the ideals of cash grants to Clubs was open for application, it should be also noted that although grants approved in the past have been well spent...there were a couple of cases where within a relatively short period of time of receiving a KPA grant, the pubs were closed with an apparent loss of the grants. It was agreed for the case in question..a KPA registered Club should be made at the venue, followed by a trial period of use of the existing facilities.after a which a formal application should be made for a KPA grant. All in all...a very good meeting. POUNDS for PERONI! This quality lager from Italy has become very popular in the U.K. over the past couple of years.clubs, pubs, restaurants and off-licenses, many retail outlets at many different prices. To be as blunt as possible.. most prices charged are a down right ripoff. The half pint bottle can be found at around 1.20, a fair price in most off-licences and super-markets. However, this same size bottle can also be found at around 3:20/ 3:50 in most pubs, clubs and restaurants. Fair to pay a little extra in a pub or restaurant to cover staff costs and overheads.but at 3 times the cost of an off-licence.this is a rip-off!.bearing in mind that the off-license price includes an in built profit. But not to worry Petanquers!..drink draught PERONI at MEADOW SPORTS CLUB for 3.20 a pint..yes 3.20 a pint...not an itty-bitty half pint. This may be a result of the influence exerted by ex-italian family JOHN SUGATO playing member of Meadow P.C...or just fair and reasonable pricing by the Meadow Sports Club.all the same.very good value for money. WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES! Is it not time to say that we made a mistake by incorporating a less than perfect computerised system for EPA Membership? A system that might be OK for a small Club where all members own a computer, but for large Clubs.a nightmare. For large Clubs, and Regional Secretaries.a nightmare. Photos for all, for what purpose? For traceability and ready, easy access to a membership data base, impossible! There must be an easier way? Surely! KPA GAZETTE Page 10

11 13.Unluckily for some, well the Germans actually as that was the number of English petanque players that descended on the Holstentorturnier Competition in Travemunde, Germany. Having played in Aug 2011 Kent players Steve and Fay Golder, Dean and Scott Ashby and Steve Brown were keen to repeat the experience and took along fellow Kent players Alex Bruce and Phil Jarret together with Chiltern s Sarah & Myra Huntley, Adrian Emson, Jack Blows and Margaret and Brian Eldridge from the East Midlands - all looking very smart in matching kit sponsored by Jack Blows. (The German custom officers told us we were in the wrong country as team GB should be in England at the Olympics). Friday was spent acclimatizing ourselves and like all good athletes after practicing on the many pistes we found a local tavern and met up with some of our German friends from our petanque club in the Canaries "Los Hermanos. The Saturday doubles tournament, set beside the beautiful sandy beach, saw us on the pistes at 8.30 am. Format was simply: Win 2 games go in group A, lose 2 - group D, Win 1, lose 1 - groups B and C. Group A qualifiers - knocked out in the afternoon, were Steve & Fay & Dean & Kaye (a German friend), most of our team mates were also knocked out in the afternoon from their various groups, but for Scott and Jack the afternoon had just begun. I must confess I have rarely seen such a high standard of play, with Scott pointing every ball close to the coche and Jack seemingly to hit every ball he went for (with a high carreau rate), which saw them reach the semi final in an exciting match that at was anybody s game, unfortunately, at 01.00, the strong German opposition won through and eventually went on to win the B group final. Scott and Jack received 150 Euros & wine. Sunday morning started the triples with Jack, Adrian, Myra, & Fay, Margaret & Brian & Dean & friends, making the A group but despite some very good play against some stiff opposition were knocked out by the afternoon. Brown, Alex & Phil having a group of death, sadly went on to be knocked out early on from their group too, but Steve, Scott and Sarah, fannied our first opponents in two ends to win 11-0 but were soon brought back down to earth after getting fannied ourselves in the next game. Due to a random draw we now had to qualify to get into Group B. We were drawn against some German juniors, who in practice, had been carreauing and pointing like champions, however they could not maintain that form and we won First game in Group B in the arena saw us go 6-1 down, when Sarah trailed the coche back to my ball and 2 shots and a point later saw us 7-6 up. At down the German team pointed 4 boule, 6"(old money) from the coche. Scott and Sarah carreaud each one! I prayed the last player wouldn't beat our nearest boule - on his second throw he did! I had to shoot for the first time that day, at 9 1/2 mtrs, in the arena in front of over 100 spectators to save game! Not good... first shot just missed. My last shot dragged the coche, with my boule, back to Scott and Sarah s giving us a win - whew! continued KPA GAZETTE Page 11

12 We beat our next two opponents 13-0, 13-0, with the same consistently high quality play. At we played a Danish side and went 8-1 up, they came back strong, at 9-8 to us the lack of lighting made it very difficult to play. They started shouting and pointing at their watches aggressively, complaining that we were playing too slow. Scott asked them to calm down, they didn t! I spoke of poor sportsmanship and declared we weren t going to throw another boule in the dark. One of our German groupies Andy, went and spoke to the arbiter who instructed us to move to a lit piste near the arena. That end saw my boule go short and despite Scott and Sarah hitting 4 boules we lost 2 points. At 10-9 down my first boule took all but one which Sarah carreaud, Scott pointed 2 great boules to win game We shook hands and everyone was friends again. The semi final was against another very good Danish team Peter Elekar, Lars Anderson and Henrik Busk (what do they feed them in Denmark) after going 10-5 down and still playing very well, we managed 4 carreaus and a point and leveled at 10-10, got 3 points the next end and after a very close fought game of a high standard we managed to win again! The captain told Scott after, that once we got back the 5 points he knew we was going to win ( I just wish he had told us! ) The final against a German team seem to be over all too quickly but I had previously seen our opposition in their semi final and was quietly confident. I felt that our semi final Danish team was the better team by far and that was the real final! We won quite comfortable It was now in the morning, with still over a hundred people milling around, watching the finals and eating and drinking from the many concession stands. I can t remember playing all day, boule after boule, end after end and game after game at such a high standard that s usually only reserved for champions, but it happened to Steve Golder, Scott Ashby and Sarah Huntley! We received 375 Euros and wine, which we gave away to our groupies which now comprised of 2 Germans and a Danish junior champion that the youngsters all knew, together with our German friends who all gave us so much support. We all finally went home. I finished the Chinese Fay had bought at 19.00, followed by half a bottle of wine, retiring at a very happy and proud man but, as all you oldies know, extremely tired with aches and pains everywhere! P.S. It was totally worth it. REPORT and Photos by FAYE & STEVE GOLDER The KPA Gazette has a theoretical readership of over 500 petanque players. It is also known that there are a few folks world wide that occasionally have a read. The Gazette has a policy of providing free advertising space for KPA members and organisations and companies who in some way benefit petanque. This free advertising space also applies to KPA members who may have items for sale. If you wish to make use of this facility, please contact the Gazette with details and maybe a photo. KPA GAZETTE Page 12

13 ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE TEAM. Mick Jennings, Margot Anderson, Dennis Vick, Alan Macleay, Kevin Murphy and team captain Pam Bessell. Another episode in the long and active life of the ever ageing petanquer and long distance swimmer Mick Jennings. Mick gave up his place in the petanque summer league team for the night to be with an old folks swimming team called On Foot in the Wave. A team of two ladies and four men, all Kent Senior Citizens. Following a group grease-up they were ready to go, the team paddled into Le Manche at Shakespeare Beach, for a swim to France on Tuesday 4th September at 10:15am, coinciding with the regular cross channel ferry leaving the dock side in Dover harbour, with passengers seated in comfort starting to tuck into eggs and bacon. The ferry made France in 1hr 45mins and the relay team landed at Cap Blanc Nez France at 3.33am on Wednesday morning with a swim time of 17hrs 18 minutes. This cross channel swim was made by the oldest six swimmer team with an average age of 68 years All the six swimmers have swam the channel before either as solo swimmers or part of a relay team. Team captain Pam Bessell organised the swim to raise funds for the Macmillan Cancer Support Fund. Mick Jennings, wearing shorts, with young Ozzie, Trent Grimsey who gained the cross channel record of 6hrs 55mins A piece of history... not far from Mill Rythe Holiday Village, Hayling Island. During WW2, parts of Mulberry wharfs were constructed local to Langstone harbour and the sea area around the Ferry Boat Inn on the very edge of Hayling Island. The concrete structures that formed part of the massive harbours were towed to France at a speed of 4.3knots as an integral part of the D-Day landings. There were two Mulberry harbours assembled off the coast of Normandy, and lines of concrete breakwaters called Phoenix Breakwaters were also constructed and positioned to protect the harbours. After fabrication and prior to crossing to France, one of these Pheonix Breakwaters sections developed a crack and was sunk and abandoned on Sinah Sands just off-shore from the Ferry Boat Inn, and remains there to this day. KPA GAZETTE Page 13

14 SATURDAY 22nd SEPT. CHAIRMAN S CUP Lordswood Sports Club North Dane Way Chatham ME5 8YE FREE ENTRY BY INVITATION ONLY (for all those players that entered the Regional Triples Qualifiers but did not qualify for the finals) SUNDAY 23 rd SEPT. K.P.A. DOUBLES CHAMPIONSHIPS Tovil Workingman s Club Tovil Hill Maidstone ME15 6QS STARTS AT 10am SUN. 30th SEPT. E.P.A. OVER 50 S DOUBLES CHAMPION- SHIPS@ BRIGHTON Pre-Entry required go to the E.P.A. website for details SUNDAY 7th October KENT LEAGUE HANDICAP HARTLEY COUNTRY CLUB Culvey Close DA3 8BS Starts at 10am SUNDAY 4th NOVEMBER ICICLE DOUBLE Lordswood Sports Club NORTH DANES WAY ME5 8YE Starts at 10am 14th to 20th OCTOBER 2012 For details contact Santa Susanna is a town on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, Costa Brava, nearest airport Barcelona or Girona. KENT CLASSIC 21st OCTOBER OPEN TRIPLES COMPETITION, BIG MONEY PRIZES AT LORDSWOOD SPORTS CLUB See the KPA web-site for details and pre-entry form SUN. 11th NOVEMBER REMEMBERANCE DAY DOUBLES HARRIERS P.C. TOVIL WORKING- MENS S CLUB Tovil Hill Maidstone ME15 6QS Starts at 10am Next K.P.A Management Committee Meeting HARTLEY COUNTRY CLUB 8pm Thursday 1st November KPA members are welcome to attend PLENTY OF NOTICE Don t miss. The combined K.P.A ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING and the K.P.League GENERAL MEETING on THURSDAY 15th NOV. 8pm at LORDSWOOD SPORTS & SOCIAL CLUB ME5 8YE MARK COOTER LEE JAMIESON FAYE & STEVE GOLDER & COLIN SENNECK for providing information for this issue of the Gazette KPA GAZETTE Page 14

15 HOLIDAY VILLA AVAILABLE EMBROIDERY DEPOT are able to supply and machine embroider a wide range of polo shirts, T shirts, sweatshirts, rugby shirts, fleeces, jackets, caps, bags, towels, flags and other garments, sew-on or iron-on badges. EMBROIDERY DEPOT can offer up to 15% price reduction for PETANQUE CLUB orders. ALAN CREGEEN proprietor. EMBROIDERY DEPOT 28 MILNER ROAD ELVINGTON DOVER KENT CT15 4EQ Tel or sales@embroiderydepot.co.uk In the village of Diano San Pietro - fully furnished 2 bedroom villa is approx 2 miles from the Mediterranean beaches of DIANO MARINA nearest airport is Genoa for full details contact JOHN SUGUATO Tel See also Gazette Issue 50 for full report KENT & SUSSEX WINDOW CLEANING AND GUTTER- ING CLEANING COMMERCIAL & DOMESTIC RELIABLE & FRIENDLY SERVICE PROVIDED COMPETITIVE PRICES GIVEN FOR FURTHER DETAILS OR QUOTES PLEASE CONTACT or TO ADVERTISE IN THE GAZETTE CONTACT RON YATES ronyates@btinternet.com FREE to all KPA MEMBERS All you need for petanque supplies from the on line brochure. Boule accessories trophies bags and clothing. Tel Shop and Sales Office at Pen-y-Coed Petanque Up Street Bradwell Bury St. Edmonds Suffolk IP31 1AA KPA GAZETTE The KENT PETANQUE GAZETTE is edited by RON YATES. Any item of news for inclusion in future editions should be sent to ronyates6@btinternet.com The views expressed in the KENT PETANQUE GAZETTE are those of the editor and contributors only, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the KENT PETANQUE ASSOCIATON or the ENGLISH PETANQUE ASSOCIATION E & O E Page 15