EKCPL Doubles

Twenty four brave souls gathered in a clearing in the tropical rain-forest that surrounds Dumpton's Brown Jug public house last Sunday in order to campaign for honours in the annual EKCPL Doubles Competition. Approximately 90% of Thanet's oxygen is produced by this jungle, through the process of photosynthesis, and when this is added to the hot air that often emanates from the saloon bar, the combination makes for a rather rich atmosphere, in which many forms of exotic vegetation happily thrive. Thankfully, deforestation has not occurred here on the same scale as in Brazil; although the scuffed-up patch of ground at the rear that purports to be a petanque piste does distinctly resemble the sort of rough scouring that might be found in the heart of the Amazon basin. It consists largely of mud and bedrock, with a few patches of grass thrown in for good measure.

That said, it was a delightful day for playing petanque, bright and sunny, with the dappled shade provided by the trees surrounding the front piste (which is a paradise compared to its counterpart at the rear) being gratefully received by all teams lucky enough to play on it. The three Natives who ventured to the the Brown Jug for this glittering occasion were Pete, Robert (who organised it, so his presence was more or less compulsory!) and yours truly. Robert teamed up with Chris Beer from the Magpies, which turned out to be a most fortuitous pairing, while Pete and I made up another duo.

Teams were placed in three groups of four for the preliminary stages of the competition, with each couple playing one game against everyone else in their group. The eight teams with the best records in these games would then progress to the quarter-final.

Pete and I found ourselves in a group with one pair of Brown Jug A players (Mark and David); one pair consisting of Jason Flynn (a Brown Jug A player) and Barry (a Brown Jug C player) and Paul & Sam from Northwood HGB. If not quite a "group of death", this was clearly going to be a group of the "distinctly tricky." We promptly lost our first two games, against the Brown Jug players, but were quite pleased to have scored 8 and 9 points against them. There then followed a closely fought and long drawn-out tussle, as usual, with Paul and Sam, in which we triumphed by the odd point. Our record of one win, with minus 8 points, from the group games seemed hardly likely to be good enough for us to qualify for the next round, so we were resigned to an early departure.

Meanwhile, Robert and Chris had also lost their first two games, but only by a single point in each, and then won their third game handsomely, so their positive points record was likely to see them safely through to the quarter-finals.

This turned out to be the case and, surprisingly, Pete and I also scraped through, in eighth place, by scoring one point more than the team that finished ninth. The quarter final match-ups were then decided on a seeded basis with the team qualifying in first place from the group stage playing the team that qualified last. Thus, the ace pairing of Roland and Max from Brown Jug A were pitted against the humble but brave Natives, who decided that their target for this game would be to score a minimum of two points. As Pete said, "get two and I'll go home happy." At 7-0 to the Brown Jug it seemed that this target might have been somewhat over-ambitious and would need revising downwards. However, after we'd scored four points on the next end we decided to revise it upwards instead. As it turned out this was the correct thing to do because we continued to collect points regularly until the scores reached 13-11 and we had won. Peter the Pointer had also become Peter the carreau king. This was a thoroughly enjoyable game and a famous scalp for the Natives, achieved on a proper piste. 

Meanwhile Robert and Chris, who had played all of their games on a back piste that was not just improper but positively indecent, were seeing off Jason and Barry, who were less able to handle the chewed up mud and rocky outcrops. This set up a semi final involving all three of the Natives, which was played on the lottery rockery at the rear of the pub. Robert and Chris proved to be too adept on this surface for Pete and me. As they were better able to land a boule on the side of a cliff than we were, they ran up a series of unanswered points and emerged with a well-deserved 13-5 win.

The final saw Robert and Chris taking on Kathy and Nigel from Northwood, who had survived from the other half of the draw. This was played on the front piste and points were steadily and evenly swapped between the teams before Robert and Chris got their noses ahead at the crucial time by scoring a critical three on one end to secure victory by 13 points to 11 and to bag the trophy. 

Altogether, this was an entertaining, amusing and enjoyable day out, with many competitive games played in a fair minded and congenial manner. It could be hoped that a few more teams from around the league would send players to take part in these events as the Brown Jug and Northwood seemed to be the only clubs represented other than the Natives. However, as the Brown Jug is very much at the heart of the EKCPL community, it also seems appropriate to continue hold league tournaments there - particularly as The Land That Time Forgot cannot remain forgotten forever. Eventually, as the song says, "they'll pave paradise and put up a parking lot."      

In other news last week, the Natives A team lost another close match at home against Brown Jug C by 3-2 (50 points to 54.)