D1 Report - Brown Jug C - Lost 2-3 45/42

From Phil

On Tuesday evening another stirring scene was enacted in that great drama, The Continuing Adventures of the Brave Natives in The Land That Time Forgot.

The Brown Jug public house adorns an unassuming little lane in leafy Dumpton and the casual passer-by would have no inkling that, behind its high walls, there lurks a primeval wilderness that would send half the world's botanists into an apoplexy of delight. There are species of flora (and fauna I shouldn't wonder) thriving in the Brown Jug jungle that have been lost to science since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. And amidst the ferny fronds, at the rear-end of the property, there is a patch of wasteland consisting of bare mud and exposed rock on which the Natives were obliged to play their first ever petanque match against the current Hatton Cup holders, Brown Jug C. If the Dementors played petanque instead of quidditch, the back piste at the Brown Jug would be their home pitch. By comparison with this dingy and neglected stretch of semi-scrub and desert the front piste at the Brown Jug is a paradise. But on Tuesday that patch of hallowed ground was occupied by Brown Jug A, who were also playing at home.

That said, the evening did begin brightly for the Natives with a sterling performance in the doubles. Alan & Pete and Robert & Duncan all played superbly well to thwart both their opponents and the diabolical conditions as they recorded highly impressive victories by scores of 13-2 and 13-1 respectively. Meanwhile, Robin and I, playing on a piece of terrain previously used by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing as a training ground, were unable to retain our hitherto unbeaten record. After holding our own during the early exchanges we carelessly gave away five precious points on one end. Any players who let slip just one lose end against this calibre of opposition are likely to find themselves tied up in knots. And so it was. We lost the game by the margin of those five points. 

However, with a 2-1 lead to take into the triples, there was good cause for the Natives to be optimistic. The Brown Jug then opted for a change of personnel, however, and this proved to be highly effective. Pete, Alan and Robert were not able to find the same range of shots that had served them so well in the doubles and soon found themselves 9-0 in arrears. Despite a late rally this deficit was too great to be overhauled and they eventually succumbed by 13 points to 5.

On the foothills of the Himalayas, meanwhile, Robin, Duncan and I fared no better. Two new players were brought in by the Brown Jug to join a chap, also called Robin, who had orchestrated their earlier win against us in the doubles. One of these, a senior pointer called Barry, was long and thin and as sharp as a whittled stick. His excellent grasp of the type of pointing required by the conditions gave his team the upper hand in most ends. Thus, the Natives were outpointed at the rate of approximately 2 to 1 and they ended up being beaten 13-6. So, despite scoring fewer points overall, the Brown Jug had won the match by 3 games to 2 and the Natives had been beaten by a team who had pulled off their own trick of finding a way to win when the odds looked to be stacked against them.

This match was played under a lowering sky, with a vicious North Easterly wind gusting to too many miles per hour, which somehow seemed to complement the diabolically dismal state of the piste. However, it is to be devoutly hoped that this will be the last bitter evening that any of the Natives petanque teams will have to endure this season! 

After the match we fought our way back through the undergrowth to the cosy and kitsch interior of the pub where a sumptuous buffet and a first-class cheese board was waiting: for the Brown Jug A team and their opponents. For us there were only soggy sandwiches made from the kind of bread that cleaves to your palate when you try to swallow it and containing a processed substance that resembled  ham in everything except appearance and taste. These anaemic offerings seemed to sum up the Natives' night.

However, when considered next to the dignified photographic tribute to Geoff Williams, the recently deceased petanque player from the Brown Jug E team, that was placed discreetly on one side of the room, the quality of the sandwiches was of no importance whatsoever. This is the chap that regular readers of this column may remember as Andy Capp. Here's an excerpt from last year's report on the Natives v. Brown Jug E match. It seems a bit ironic now: "he made Andy Capp look like Lord Snooty and would probably have expired if he ever drifted more than three feet away from a pint of beer, but he was was the main culprit! He stood dead-still and bolt-upright to deliver his boules, with just a thin wisp of smoke rising from the roll-up at the side of his mouth. And then he swung his arm several times like a metronome before delivering a shot that invariably removed one of our boules and settled in a scoring position for them. He may be shambolic but, when he gets the metronome going, that chap can lob a mean boule! To cut a long story short, we lost 13-3."

Finally, petanque is played all over the world. This is a makeshift piste constructed by the locals in the remote village of Luang Prabang in northern Laos. If they can do it, why can't the Brown Jug?