Half Crown Petanque Club

Half Crown Breeze into Europe as England's 2010 Club Champions

19 Half Crown Club members travelled to Burnham in Buckinghamshire on Sunday 18th April to contest the semi final and final of the English Club Championship, the winners of which will represent England in the European Cup for Clubs.
The semi-final, played in the morning, was against Tovil PC and the Half Crown had a shaky start in the opening two triples games being 0-6 down in one and 0-3 down in the other. However, they rallied round and eventually won both games - 13-9 and 13-5 and then went on to win all three second round pairs games - 13-0, 13-1 and 13-6 to win the match convincingly 5-0 and move into the final.
In the afternoon the Half Crown played Meadows PC in the final and won the opening triples fairly easily 13-7 and 13-6. The first of the second round pairs went to Meadows PC 7-13, but the other two Half Crown pairs played well and secured victory with 13-7 and 13-10 wins to take the match and the championship 4-1

The Half Crown now face a first round tie in the European Cup on July 31/August 1 in Denmark against the club champions from Denmark and Finland. If they win this round, the second round tie in October will be at home.
Club Chairman, John Emberton, said "I'm really proud of the team and our travelling supporters - it's been a tough qualifying competition against all the top teams from around the country. Many of our players have contributed along the way in addition to the eight that represented us on Sunday. It will be a real honour to represent England in the European Cup and we will travel to Denmark with a realistic chance of becoming the first British club to progress into Round 2 of the competition".

The Euro Cup Round 1 Squad Selection

There was a great turn out of 18 club members on 9th May to watch the shoot-out for the final place in the Half Crown Team to compete in Round 1 of the European Cup for Clubs on July 31st. Philippe Bonnet, Martin Baker and Jamie Lewis took part in a very competitive shoot out over five rounds at the end of which just 3 points separated Jamie and Philippe, with Jamie Lewis gaining the advantage with a carreau on his very last shot.

We took advantage of the fine weather to play a three round melee which was won by Ian Brittain who was unbeaten with just a 4 point advantage over Rosaleen Preston who won second prize. David Kimpton was third.

The squad playing in Denmark comprises:
Jerome Rousseau (Captain)
Herve Bavazzano
Sofiane Lachlani
Nic Baxter
Marcus Hickman
Jamie Lewis
Janet Kimpton
Caroline Powell.

Caroline did a great job persuading her boss to sponsor our Denmark trip by providing the kit.

The three way cup tie between Half Crown, Hvidovre PC (Denmark) and PSC Jarvenpaa (Finland) went right to the wire, with a single poor end in the final game of the competition, when the score was 9-10, allowing the Fins to snatch the game and the whole contest from out of our grasp.
The star players of the weekend were Sofiane Lachani and Marcus Hickman who won 3 of their 4 games with a points advantage of +6. All the other players managed just one win from their four games, and the whole match was so evenly poised that just one more win would have put us in first place.

Everyone was very disappointed but the team played well and could realistically have come first so we should be very proud of our efforts.
Our Danish hosts made the weekend very enjoyable, and we all made many new friends. So here's to next year.