As Euro fever sweeps the nation and Clean Surroundings sweep the nearby roads, the final draw for the Bridgwater International Pétanque Tournament has caught the nations, towns, people playing’s, imagination. Organiser Michael Wheatley from Pétanque International’s Headquarters (not far from Bridgwater Docks) drew the names out of a hat as eager teams gripped the sides of their chairs to find out who they would finally be playing. The tournament will be held on Friday 9th July from 12 noon to 3 pm at Victoria Park, Bridgwater and teams will be drawn from Bridgwater’s many international partnership towns. Pétanque was invented in Bridgwater’s French twin town of La Ciotat in 1907. Or 1910.
Group A
England -Germany-Malta-Italy
Group B
France-Portugal-Czech Republic- USA
This means the games will proceed as below starting 1210 played 2 at a time on parallel courts
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The Tournament
Group A Group B
England v Germany France v Portugal
Malta v Italy Czech v USA
Germany v Malta Portugal v Czech
England v Italy France v USA
2.30 (the winners from each group will play in the final for Gold and Silver and the second places will play on the parallel court for Bronze and , er… Toffee maybe (?)
Winner A v Winner B 2nd Place A v 2nd Place B
Bridgwater’s Twin Towns
Bridgwater has 6 official twin towns
La Ciotat (France) 1957
Homberg (Germany) 1992
Uherske Hradiste (Czech Republic) 1992
Marsa (Malta) 2006
Priverno (Italy) 2015
Camacha, Madeira (Portugal) 2019
In addition Bridgwater has historic links with Bridgewater Massachusetts which also happens to be, oddly, 10 miles from Taunton.
To read more click here
On July 24th there will be a Twinning Evening with Music and video links to our partner towns held at the Bridgwater Arts Centre from 8pm.
More information here.