The French game of Petanque has a special relevance here in Bridgwater as it was invented in our French Twin Town of La Ciotat. For the past 2 years the Bridgwater Twinning groups have organised a Petanque themed get together on the grassy plains of Victoria Park, but first the Czechs won and then the Portuguese. This year however, it was finally time for the French to stake their claim to the sport they brought to the world. And Bridgwater. This year the French team..heavily disguised as characters from an episode of ‘Allo’Allo, smashed the otherwise quite good Italian team in a final made even harder by the driving rain.

Petonk!

Bridgwater has 7 twin towns. In historical order, La Ciotat (France) , Homberg (Germany) Uherske Hradiste (Czech Republic) Marsa (Malta) Priverno (Italy) Camacha (Portugal) and Seattle (USA), and so players from each of the twinning groups represented their partner countries.

The runners up were Italy which actually featured  one real Italian and 1 half Italian. Slightly ahead on ethnic points of the Portuguese team who had 1 real Portuguese player and 2 people who had lived there once.

Petank!

England was represented by staff from Bridgwater Town Council and came third.

The also runs in mid table positions include the Czechs, the Germans and the USA, but the losers (Malta) had a special ‘wooden spoon’ prize this time round. Any more comment might be seen as ‘stirring it’…

Deputy Mayor, Cllr Jacqui Solomon who also played for the Czech team (that didn’t work out..) was on standby to present the medals at the end of the day.

Petwongle!

The tournament was organised by Michael Wheatley and supported by Bridgwater Town Council.

Town Council Leader Cllr Brian Smedley, who played for the Czech Team said “There has been a fantastic upsurge in interest in the game of petanque over the past year..although that could just be because we doubled the numbers that could be in each team from 2 to 4. However, be that as it may, it would be a great idea to have a Permanent Petanque ‘Piste’  so that more people could try their hand at the sport.”

Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys!

The twinners will be getting together on Saturday 1st July at the Bridgwater Arts Centre for an evening of films , talks and live music and dance from our twin towns, including an Italian dance spectacular by La Tarantella. Doors open at 7pm, show starts at 7.30 and everyone is welcome!

For more information on Bridgwater’s twinnings and other international links click here

For more information about the saturday event click here

For reports on previous petanque tournaments click here (and here)