Group report

This is an article published in the Christmas 2018 edition of the Hayling Island U3A newsletter….

The U3A has held its third successive national weekend of Pétanque, which took place at Mill Rythe Holiday Village on Hayling Island on September 22nd and 23rd. This was arranged by Pétanque subject adviser Andrew Lloyd (Malmesbury & District U3A), a national Pétanque player, coach and manager of over 20 years’ experience.

48 teams from 19 U3A’s took part, including the Hayling Hawks (Sheila Partridge, Sue Humphrey, Judy Adams, Peter May, Bill Tait, Pat LeClerc, Tony Higham and Geoff Belding.)

It was a very rain-soaked event! Teams came from all over the country, from as far afield as Guernsey. We played 5 games on the Saturday, giving everyone a turn in the 3-player per side games. We only lost one game, and that was to one of the teams from Torridge, North Devon, who ended the weekend as finalists. Sunday morning games were cancelled because of heavy rain, but the knockout rounds were played in the afternoon in brightening weather. Sadly our Hawks lost their first knockout game, but were very proud to have finished 10th overall on the Saturday.We thank the organisers for putting on this large event, and coping with the prevailing conditions. We hope to enter at least one team in next year’s event.

Geoff Belding (Co-coordinator for the weekend)

The Pétanque group is very sad to hear of the death of Tony Higham, who was part of our team at Mill Rythe. We would like to send our condolences to his family.


Go to the Petanque 1 group page