Eastern Counties Region club Colne Angel, who play at Earls Colne Leisure Centre, competed in Italy in the preliminary round of the European Club KO Competition after qualifying as the top club in England.
They were drawn against Circolo San Giuliano Lido from Genoa and were overwhelmed by the generosity of their hosts. Unfortunately they were also overwhelmed by the sheer professionalism of the Italian club team, which consisted of an array of talent with former Italian senior, junior & women’s champions as well as the French doubles champion of 2003.
Petanque is taken so much more seriously on the continent and the club membership just shows the strength of the sport and therefore the difference in class that our team had to compete with. Colne Angel has 16 members, the Italian club over 300, and most of them turned up to watch the event.
The main playing area was undercover and they had another 16 full size pistes.
The opening ceremony took place with both countries’ National Anthems being played, then the presentation of the teams to the president of the club, together with their sponsors.
Play got underway with the opening mixed triples, where Chris Allen, Vanessa Webb & Kim Lachani were quite soundly beaten 13-2. It was then the turn of Simon Bird, Sofiane Lachani & David Mark in the Open Triples they managed to hold the Italians in the early stages but the opposition pulled away to win 13-6.
In the second round there was an open doubles & two mixed doubles. Bird teamed up with Viv Middleton-Sams and went down 13-6. Chris Allen & Vanessa Webb lost with the same scoreline. The best performance of the day was by the husband & wife team of Sofiane & Kim Lachani who came very close to gaining a win for Colne. Several times they were in a good position in the game, being 5-0 up and 10-4 up but the opposition stepped up their game and closed the gap to 10-9 and then took the lead for the first time in the game at 10-12. The final end was won by the Italians which gave them a 13-10 win and an unbeatable 5-0 lead in the match so the final games were conceded.
The Colne Angel team thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and the hospitality given to them over the weekend was incredible, from being picked up at the airport, given a kitty to pay for any taxis and by being fed and watered as guests of Antonio Napolitano in the club house.
Colne’s team strip was chosen to represent the Cancer ‘Race for Life’ events which were taking place over the weekend in the UK in which two team members had planned to walk until they realized it clashed with their trip to Italy. So in their pink shirts, Daphne Barrow & Julie Constable did their own ‘Race for Life’ with a 60 min jog along the beautiful Genoa coastline and hopefully, together with the collections taken place at the Farm Shop, Greenstead Green, where another member of staff also did the race at the weekend, the ladies have raised over £150.00.