Braintree & District


The Braintree & District Petanque League caters for clubs in the North East of the region. There are 2 leagues, Summer commencing during April played on Wednesday evenings and Winter commencing in October played on Sundays.




BDPL 23/4/08
In the Braintree & District Petanque League, sponsored by Daniel Robinson & Sons Ltd, Rayne Swan 3 & Feering Bell 2 contested a fascinating triples game. When the Bell triple of Dave Bird, Dave Pearse & Tom Winter made 4 on the 1st end there was no indication of the marathon that was to follow. The Swan triple of Trevor Turner, Baz Brewer & Tom Smith replied with a 2 on the next end, after which followed a sequence of 10 ends which were all won by a single point. The Swan appeared to be grinding out a hard earned victory at 10 – 6 when the Bell were fortunate to shoot out the coche to make 2 ending the sequence of singles. Three more hard fought ends saw the Swan leading 11 – 10. On the next end the Bell manufactured a slight opening and with the Swan out of boule pointed in to make 3 and take the game 11 – 13 after almost 1 1/2 hours of play.
As last week the Bell was unable to build on this result. In the doubles the Swan’s Beryl Gibson & Turner scored two 5’s in the first 3 ends to jump into a 10 – 2 lead. Spirited resistance by Tom Winter & Dave Bird saved the game a few times but at 12 – 7 the Bell where unable to respond when the Swan displaced their boule and went down 13 –7.
Smith was always in the lead in his singles match with Pearse. At 9 – 7 Smith shot out the holding boule to make 3 and when Pearse was unable to do the same on the following end the Swan took the game 13 –7 and the match 2 -1.

Feering Bell’s first team were hosting Rayne Swan’s third and the experience of Bell’s Carol Barnes, Ian Barnes & Bernie Wade ensured a 3-0 win.
The Bell trio took the singles 13-5, Matt & Harry Waldie put up a good fight in the doubles only losing 13-8 and Wade defeated Smith 13-10 to take all 3 points for the Bell.

Rayne Swan 1 had a very good away win against a strong Colne Angel team although a little bit of luck helped them in the triples. Simon Bird, Viv Middleton-Sams & Daphne Barrow were 3-4 down when the Swan moved the coche for the first time to take the score to 3-9. After Colne fought their way back to 8-9 the Swan trio of Adam Buxton, Lee Dodge & Lorne Gibson then had the good fortune to move the coche for a second time resulting in an 8-13 win.
Gibson played well in the singles but Bird is in such a rich seam of form at the moment he pulled away to win 13-6.
The deciding doubles was won comfortably by the Swan pairing of Dodge & Schofield, with sublime pointing by Dodge, to defeat Middleton-Sams & Barrow 13-1.

Elsewhere, Rayne Cock 1 defeated their second team 2-1. Cock 2’s only result was a close singles win by Mark Sainsbury over Paul Linehan 13-12