Competition | Monkstone Pétanque Club

Archive for Competition

2025 President’s Cup Ends in Drama

5 October, 2025 / Webmaster / No comments

After the disappointing postponements due to the weather which ended in the 2024 President’s Cup not being contested, the competition was back at the Club today for the 2025 edition. 28 members entered the fray to have the honour of winning the trophy on a blustery but fine day.

After Round 1 there was no clear leader with 4 players on +9 and 2 players on +11.

Things were a bit clearer after Round 2 with 5 players on 2 wins but 2 of them were well out in the lead, Carol Maroney on +20 and Roger Green on +21. Was the Cup destined to go to one of these 2?

Round 3 produced a few surprises – Carol & Roger both lost to fall out of contention while Alex Skibinski & Elijah Jeffers with their partners both pulled off huge wins to finish on +23. So here it was, the first tie ever in the President’s Cup with an extra end of singles being called by the Organiser to decide the winner.

The crowd gathered round to watch the encounter – Alex began and put his boule around 40cm from the coche whereupon Elijah moved the coche back and was holding. Alex was short with his second boule but, with his third, he clipped his own boule, pushed it forward and knocked Elijah’s boule away from the coche to finish again about 40cm from the coche but nicely in front. This left Elijah with 2 boules to either outpoint Alex or shoot him out. The adrenalin got to him and he pointed his second boule far too long. The crowd held their breath, Elijah collected himself and, under great pressure, put his last boule about 15cm from the coche to take the prize.

Well done to Elijah, commiserations to Alex and a big thank you to all those who fought their way through the half-marathon road blocks and traffic jams to get the club this morning.

RESULTS

WINNER

Winner Elijah (r), Runner Up Alex (l)

and President Mike Jones (c)

Category: Competition /

Friendly v Royal Wootton Bassett 2nd Leg

19 September, 2025 / Webmaster / No comments

The postponed 2nd leg of our annual Friendly v Royal Wootton Bassett PC was played at RWB on Thursday 18 September 2025. All those taking part were relieved to find that the fixture was still taking place after the atrocious weather the previous day. In fact it turned out to cloudy with very warm sunny interludes.

The match was played in the usual format of 2 rounds of 6 doubles and 2 rounds of 4 triples. Unusually RWB chose to start with the triples which were then followed by the doubles after lunch.

MPC had a healthy lead of 13 games to 7 after the first leg, but realised that RWB would be looking to overturn that on their home gravel.

The 2 rounds of triples each finished with 2 games all, so MPC had retained their 6 game advantage, after which lunch provided by RWB was taken.

The first round of doubles finished 3-3 so RWB would have to win all 6 of the games in the second round of the doubles. Fortunately for MPC they came up slightly short by taking 4 of the games to MPC’s 2 thus reducing the overall deficit to 4 games with MPC taking the overall honours by 22 games to 18.

Category: Competition, Friendship /

2025 Club Singles

19 September, 2025 / Webmaster / No comments

The first ever (annual?) Club Singles were held at the Club on 6 September 2025. There were a total of 28 entries, 20 Men and 8 Ladies (inc 3 Juniors) so both a Men’s and Ladies’ Singles were held.

Both competitions had a 3 round Qualification Stage in the Morning followed by an Elimination Stage in the afternoon. The Men’s Elimination stage was divided into Main, Plate for the top 16 from the morning and a Repechage for the remaining 4.

Ladies Competition

The morning Qualification Stage threw up few surprises but mention should be made of Maddie Bartlett who ranked #4.

The Quarter Final of the Elimination Stage in the afternoon went very much as might have been expected but the later stages saw a very tight finish between Penny Wooller and Amanda Jenkins with Penny squeezing home for a place in the Final. On the Other side of the draw Maddie Bartlett overcame Diana De for the chance to meet Penny in the Final which was another close run thing with Maddie just coming up short at the end.

So the Final has been contested between a newcomer to the Club, although Penny had played the game at league level some years ago, and one of our exciting crop of Juniors.

Perhaps this will encourage more Ladies to come forward next year – in Singles its anybody’s game!

Men’s Competition

Main

In the Main there were no great surprises but mention should be made of Tony Cooper (4), Paul Hawkins (6) and Keith Miller (7) who are all relative newcomers to the game. Unfortunately they all fell at the first Elimination hurdle except Keith Miller who went on to defeat Phil Roberts (2), Claude Razavet (3) and Sean Smith (1), the tournament favourite.

Huge congratulations to Keith for an outstanding performance.

Plate (Qualification Rankings Below are all +8)

In the Plate, those who were Ranked after the morning session from 9 to 16, Tony Martin, an experienced but infrequent player of the game, came through to beat newcomer Lloyd Kinsey in the Final.

Repechage (Qualification Rankings Below are all +16)

The big surprise was to see Tony Smith in the Repechage. As Tony himself put it “I’ve had a S*$% day”. Well done to Keith Thomas for fighting through and taking the Final against Peter Lippett

A big thank-you to Claude Le Razavet who organised the competition – a first at MPC for Claude. Hopefully he is a leader and other members will follow in his footsteps and organise one of the Club competitions. Help is always available if you haven’t done it before.

Category: Competition /

Friendly v Royal Wootton Bassett 1st Leg

3 July, 2025 / Webmaster / No comments

Toady, we welcomed to our club, a party of 15 friends from Royal Wootton Bassett PC. The occasion was the the 1st leg of the annual competition between the clubs. The 2nd leg will be played at RWB PC on 18 September 2025.

Our guests were welcomed in typical Monkstone sunny weather and were treated to tea/coffee and Welsh cakes after their journey across the bridge.

The match was in the usual format of 2 rounds of 6 doubles followed by 2 rounds of 4 triples.

When play got under way Monkstone took an early lead in the first round of doubles and finally won the round by 4-2 (games) and 62-43 (points). The pattern continued the second round of doubles with Monkstone again edging it by 4-2 and 56-41.

A break was then taken for a sumptuous lunch provided by the MPC members with a trip to the bar for those who wanted to slake their thirst in the hot weather. The deserts provided included, what else in Wimbledon fortnight, strawberries and cream.

So, after the repast, play recommenced with round one of the triples. Monkstone proved they hadn’t overeaten or drunk by continuing in their fine form to take the round 3-1 and 50-26.

On to the final round of triples but Monkstone took their foot of the gas a bit and RWB earned a draw with 2-2 and 45-36.

So the final score was a 1st Leg win by 13-7 and 213-146. They may “think its all over ……….” but it’s not. Monkstone can expect a tough fight from RWB in the return fixture in September as they try to overcome the deficit.

Many thanks to those who played and those who provided the lunch and a special “Well Done” to Ros Goddard, supervising her first event in her new role as MPC Fixture Secretary.

Category: Competition, Friendship /

2025 Monkstone PC Open Triples

22 June, 2025 / Webmaster / No comments

Monkstone PC open Triples were contested today with 15 teams taking part. The weather was mixed, mainly sun and cloud but apart from a couple of very light showers we escaped the threatened rain.

The format was pools of 4 in the morning with Gold and Silver elimination competitions in the afternoon.

It was great to see a many members from MPC, including couple of our up and coming Juniors, Maddie Bartlett & Kitty Johnson, taking part against some of the best players in the WPA.

ENTRY LIST