Vanessa Webb's report for the EuroPetanque and European Championships.

EUROPETANQUE INVITE EVENT
England was invited to partake in a 2 day competition prior to the European Championships which we kindly accepted, as this gave us ‘the team’ a perfect opportunity to play on the pistes beforehand.

So we left for Nice on Friday 17th. Although the flight was only 1 hour and 45mins, we had to divert to Marseille due to low cloud at Nice airport, making it impossible to land. So after some time sat on the runway in Marseille some 1- 1 1/2 hours later we took off and landed in Nice a few hours late. Unfortunately, due to our late arrival there was nobody waiting to collect us from the airport, so we jumped in a taxi and headed towards our hotel. The organisation was very poor, as we had no information at all about the competition prior to the European Championships. One would have expected details/information to have been left in our ‘pigeon hole’ at the hotel. The hotel was very basic, but ideally situated from the venue as it was only a 5-10 minute walk away.

Not knowing much about the competition the next day, we decided to get a feel for the area, so we took a walk along the beachfront where there were a lot of people playing boule. It was then that we spoke to a very kind German player who advised us on the time and where to register for the competition the following day.

So we made our way out on the Saturday morning where I registered the team amongst 100’s of other teams (there were invited teams from other nations who too were taking part in the EC). Our first game was at 8.30a.m. We were playing on the beach front, the pistes were similar to Brean sands, very difficult to point on, you had to choose your ‘spot’ to land, (although it would take a high lob, with lots of back spin) but was good carreaux country! We had drawn a French team, not a good French team by any means, we just had to find our feet, decide who was doing what etc. We lost the game 13-4 and were out of the competition. I then went and registered the team for the next days comp. We were pulled out to start at 9.00a.m again on the sea front. The French team we played were very good, but we were too! We had a terrific game, Roly in particular was shooting very well and staying, play was coming together nicely. We marginally lost the game 13-9, but what a good game! It was obvious that the only difference between the two teams was the ‘consistency’ of boule thrown. That odd bad boule thrown was losing ends. We knew that we had to ‘up our game’ be more consistent!

As teams were getting knocked out throughout the day, more and more terrains were becoming available to practice on – our ‘boys’ were in their element, playing boule all day in glorious sunshine.

It was a few days into the trip that Greg suffered from the ‘sun’. We bought some re-hydration sachets, he bought a hat (after some constant nagging) and he spent a couple of days resting in the hotel. He made a good recovery just in time for the EC.

Part 2