I suspect that this particular tournament (Home vs. Home) came to be when one Petalumian challenged a Marinite this way:
“Let’s step outside to have a man-to-man conversation.”
That’s one of the reasons Petaluma met Marin in the arena last Sunday. It was a clash of titans giants gentlemen bad hombres with raging testosterones.
This encounter consisted of four (13 points) round-robin games, with accumulated wins and points determining the final outcome. The club with the most wins (and points) will take first prize.
La Pétanque Marinière fielded the following grunts:
- Sandra Shirkey, Mark Shirkey, Noel Marcovecchio
- Alain Efron, Francois Moser, Claudie Chourré
- Henry Wessel, Calvert Barron, Marc Davantes
- Brigitte Moran, Charlie Davantes, Liv Kraft
The Petaluma Valley Pétanque Club deployed the undernamed doughboys:
- Bleys Rose, Dennis Casad, Dennis Zerbo
2. Albert Woodbury, Caitlin Woodbury, Hans Kurz
3. Ed Porto, Dougie Coleville, Stu Rabinowitz
4. David Hale, Larry Brown, Joe La Torre
The weather was sunny, a little cool in the morning, but absolutely beautiful in the afternoon. Due to the recent rain, the field remained a little “spongy” and unpredictable
One game was played in the morning and three games after lunch.
The first game was a total disaster for our team. We faced Albert Woodbury, Caitlin Woodbury and Hans Kurz and they sent us packing in a few minutes with a 1/13 score. We left the field with our tails between our legs.
After lunch, we met Bleys Rose, Dennis Zerbo and Dennis Casad. We did not fare much better, losing 4/13 to the enemy. Bleys’ impressed me with his shooting ability and handling of his team. A cool dude that Bleys dude.
On our 3rd game, we faced David Hale, Larry Brown and Joe La Torre. At this point, we were seething with pent-up outrage and we finally won our first game routing our opponents 13/1. It was a much-needed shot in the arm.
On our 4th and last encounter, we came across Ed Porto, Dougie Coleville and Stu Rabinowitz. We started well, lost a little steam midway and finally, due to the superb pointing of Francois Moser and Claudie Chourré, we scored another win 13/6.
The Petaluma folks are experienced players. They played very well and won more games than the Marinites. At the end of the day, they had won 11 games, versus 5 wins for Marin.
In 3 weeks we will meet Petaluma again (on their own turf) and the total number of combined wins of these 2 encounters will determine what club will be entitled to bragging rights.
It was an excellent day, full of action and brotherly love. Due to the flu epidemic, we avoided embracing or kissing, but some people could not help themselves and oblivious to the marauding germs smooched heartily. Containing passion is always a difficult task.
Around 4:30 p.m. it was all over. Petaluma had decisively beat us, but as we say in French “on leur réserve a chien de notre chienne” (an interesting expression meaning something like “we will have our revenge”).
Alain
PS: I managed to take some interesting pictures. Have a look.