From Phil
At the Blean Tavern, which used to be The Hare and Hounds, the Whitstable Natives "A" team, half of which used to be the Yellabacks, were taking on The Herne Bay Herons, who used to play at the Share & Coulter, which has now closed!
The French have a saying, "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." (The more things change, the more they stay the same.) So the venues and the personnel may alter with the seasons but the game's the same. And the game's petanque!
Last night's Natives "A" consisted of three players, Alan Martin, Pete West and Robert Sheridan, who are new to the team but veterans of the game and three players, Robin & Duncan Hardy and Phil Lyne who are veterans of the team but still comparatively new to the game.
After arriving at the Blean Tavern and satisfying their immediate and urgent thirst the Natives went in search of the local piste, only to discover that it had been unaccountably turned into a practice area for motocross. Where once there existed a lush area of firm, flat terrain, dressed with powdered granite, there was now only a smear of mud, peppered with a few flecks of gravel. And the whole thing was claggy from recent rain. How this atrocity had been allowed to happen is anybody's guess but the rules do say that petanque can be played on "any terrain" so we just rolled up our sleeves (it was a warm night) and got on with it.
The playing area had been divided into two pistes, side by side, with one of them adjacent to a hillside that was still oozing rainwater onto the surface. Robin, Alan and Robert had the dubious pleasure of playing their triples game on this pitch and they acquitted themselves exceedingly well by squelching their way to a 13-8 win against stout opposition.
On the marginally less mushy piste next door Pete, Duncan and Phil found themselves engaged in a dour struggle for supremacy against some very stubborn Herons. In fact, when we went 12-7 down it looked as though the game was up for the brave Natives. But, with Pete's impeccable pointing and Duncan rediscovering his shooting skills at just the right moment, we managed to claw back the deficit to record a 13-12 win and take 2-0 lead in the match.
With the sun now well below the horizon the floodlights were duly switched on. This proved to be only a token attempt to hold back the gloom, however, because the lights were about as effective, and roughly the same shade, as Belisha beacons. However, this did not prevent the brave Natives from being reasonably optimistic about the overall result as they approached the round of three doubles games. Captain Robin circumspectly selected the pairs to play in these games so that there would be a balance of the pointing and shooting skills available.
Thus, Robert teamed up with Duncan and they romped to a 13-1 win in less time than it took for the lights to warm up (about 10 minutes.) Meanwhile, Alan and Pete helped themselves to a more leisurely 13-8 triumph over their opposition but they were always in charge and the result of their game, to coin Keith's favourite phrase, "was never in doubt!" This just left Robin and Phil to attempt to complete the rout by winning their game against two of the wily senior Herons. After establishing a comfortable 10-3 lead we both seemed to go on a sort of mental walkabout (in truth the piste did somewhat resemble the Australian outback) and allowed our opponents to gain ground before we came to our senses and rallied for a 13-9 win.
Thus a notable 5-0 victory was achieved over another First Division team, which we then celebrated with a glass of fresh apple juice (well, one of us did!) and a very acceptable Thai green curry, supplied by the proprietors of the Tavern.
Natives "A" are now looking forward to a First Round match at home against the Herne Bay Gulls on 3 May. Next week our League campaign begins with a match at home against Northwood HGB, who used to be the Horse & Groom "B" team. "Plus ca change . . . . "
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