Written by: Roger | Wednesday, 14th August 2024 - 20:04

Category: Activities | Tags: petanquepétanque

We were fortunate enough to run two events this year, thanks to Ted’s forward thinking when he booked the dates. He also provided the cup for the best player.

For the July (24th) one, we had 21 players with a mix of members, partners and friends, and Russell at Horsham & Shipley Community Project made up the shortfall with experienced members of their club to help us remember how to play.

The weather was excellent, and for some participants, so was their playing ability, which wasn’t the case for all of us!

Two hours passed very quickly, and it was tea, coffee and cakes in the sunshine, whilst Russell passed judgement on ‘who was the best player’.

With assessments from his team of helpers, the overall conclusion was that Roy was the best of the men, and no less a person than his wife Hilary was best lady.

Although there was scope to field 24 players at each event, some players were required to play again for the second event to make up the numbers.

So it was all to play for in August(14th) because both Roy & Hilary were playing again!

We had 24 names signed up, although on the day, one person was unable to participate, and it started to rain as play commenced. But who cared, Probus members are tough and just got on with it, as Russell explained that the location had a micro-climate….. and the sun soon came out.

Whilst the A272 which runs alongside the rinks was noisy, the players were much louder with their cheers, applause and roars of encouragement. Once again. the two hours came and went, and it was back to more refreshments with the excellent cakes provided by HSCP.

Russell gave an overview of players performances, surprisingly suggesting that those who had played on both occasions had shown an improvement in their skills (really??), and informed us of the judges deliberations, announcing that the overall best player across the two events was …… Hilary. Well done to Hilary!

In the absence of Ted, Roger presented Hilary with the trophy, requesting that she keep it clean, since it would be presented formally at the Christmas lunch by Ted.

Overall assessment – we certainly had enough players to justify two dates, although of the 45 sign ups, 9 played both events, so 36 members etc in total participated. Hopefully by the 2025 dates, we can find another 12 players to fill the teams without doubling up.

Everyone seemed to enjoy playing and mixing together, which is what Probus is all about. Our thanks to Ted, who had the original idea for Probus members to play, and to Russell and his team at HSCP.