Cobbetts Poppy Day 2019 – Southern Counties Petanque

The 11th Cobbetts Poppy Appeal Doubles was held at Burridge on Sunday, November 10th and the aim was to repeat the £1000 raised in 2018. The Burridge Club again allowed us to use a small area of car park which enabled us to accept an extra four teams giving us an entry of 42 teams. Sadly six more teams had to be turned away! After all the recent rain we were lucky to get a sunny day although the temperature dropped rapidly as the semi-finals and finals were played after the sun had set.

There were nine morning leagues of four teams and one of six teams. The top 16 teams qualified to play in the main competition in the afternoon, the next 16 in the plate and the final 10 in the wooden spoon. After the morning leagues, last year’s winners Karen and Callum Lombard were top seeds with 3 wins +32. Close behind were Phil Bradshaw from Bath and Steve Daykin from the home club on 3 wins +31. Other teams on 3 wins were David Franco Cruz & Dave Plumhoff, Mike Tull & Harrison Ash, Nick Hall & Sheila Young, Dave Stubbs & Richard Greeves, Kate & Alan Douglas and Diane Slater & Marcle Roux.

At 11am play was stopped for the traditional two minutes silence for Remembrance Sunday. A big thank you to Mike Moss from Fareham who attended especially to recite the exhortation during the act of remembrance.

The afternoon saw some hard fought games with Sheila and Paul putting out the champions, Karen and Calum, in the quarter-finals. They then defeated Mike & Harrison to reach the final. Last year’s runners-up, Dave and Richard, beat David and Dave 13-12 also at the same quarter-final stage before losing to Phil & Steve in the semi-finals. Phil had tripped and hurt his hand when getting petrol in Cardiff before setting-out for Burridge. Despite this, he and Steve managed to go the day unbeaten defeating Paul & Sheila in the final. On his return to Cardiff, he went to hospital and found he had chipped a bone in his throwing hand!

The main consolage was won by Sam Thatcher and Jason Willcocks who defeated the England Juniors, Jamie Brooks and Liam Floyd in the final. We wish the lads well in the Junior World Championships that take place in Cambodia next week.

The Plate competition was won by the home club team of Lee & Diane Redfern who defeated Steve Lombard & Dave Lucas in the final. The Plate Consolage was won by Chris Chubb & Alan Forse who beat two of the visiting players from the City of Bath club, Gay Evans & Jeremy Colledge.

The Wooden Spoon competition saw two teams finish with 3 wins. The two Tonys, Kidd and Mann, finished on +20 just ahead of the local team, Steve Love & Sue Sandy, who had +17.

Thanks to the great support shown by club members and all the visiting players it looks like we have a very good chance of reaching the target of £1000 for the Poppy Appeal when all the sums are done.

Dave Stubbs