With our home match to Leeds called off last week we were on the road again for our WY League match against Mirfield!
It was the first time we got to wear our new team kit and I must say we looked resplendent in the beautiful morning sunshine.
Modelling the new kit for the first time!
The team spirit that a uniform can muster really rubbed off in the first triples game with Colin, Dad (happy to associate given his performance) and myself taking on Shirley, Harry and Ian.
Thanks in the main to Tony it was a relatively short game and we ran out 13-1 winners. I pointed maybe just better than the average and Colin followed me in nicely finding the length well lots of times but it was down to Dad’s shooting and pointing in that made the score so one sided.
He only missed a single shot all game and added a good few points when Colin and I gave him the opportunity. Well done Dad!
The second game was a much, much closer affair. With the scores even several times early the Mirfield trio of Kevin, Jim and Mark found a good patch and went 11-8 up on our triple of Anita, Alan and Ian.
Anita was pointing well but needed to as Kevin also lead out really well for Mirfield.
Our team worked the next end well with Alan adding a second shot with his last boule to go 11-10. Just a shot behind.
In a game that lasted over an hour and a half our team crafted two single points out of the next two ends, missing a couple of chances to win but going 12-11 in front.
They managed to get the final one they needed, in the next end to finally get over the line for a hard fougt 13-11 win.
On to the doubles and we all made good starts. I didn’t see much of the play as our game finished along with the other longer game but when I looked around each of our teams had gone 7-0 ahead!
Ian and Colin finished their game quickly with a comeback from Shirley and Mirfield Ian looking likely only briefly and we won the game to 6.
Me and Dad conspired to throw away a 7-0 and then 8-1 lead. The game changed in a couple of end where Mirfield shot a boule to take out the coche for a dead end when bang in trouble and then Dad getting unlucky with a shot that got a half ball contact and took out our closest ball.
That said I played poorly in the second half of the game and gave us nothing to get us started and we got what we deserved, a 13-10 loss.
That was a shame because Alan and Anita got the job done in their game against Kevin and Jim and so we denied Hecky another away clean sweep. Like the other games, Mirfield side came back into this one and whilst they never quite got on top they got within 1 or 2 points to give our team a scare. But some good pointing by Anita ultimately proved too much even though the Mirfield team seemed to he shooting well. Alan also shot well when we needed and they won 13-8.
If you put that all together that was a good 4-1 win and some more valuable points towards our improving points difference total.
A nice photo from David showing the beautiful skies during the doubles
Lets hope we can keep up the good form at home! Thanks as always to our supporters David, Bev, Karen, Roger F, Alma and Roger J!
Alan Bate, on the road again and reporting more good play from our team!
Hecky Thump (Alan, Anita and Shirley) on the triples Road again as the only Hecky players to enter the Triples at Beverley today (12 th May). What a glorious day with wall to wall sunshine surpassed only by the team finishing as runners up on the day.
14 teams entered with Hecky Thump drawing 1 and winning 2 of their league games to progress into the gold quarter finals. Anita’s pointing was superb, Shirley following up with many counting boules and Alan shooting well when needed and occasionally adding to the points total.
A quarter final against Zan Calm (Madge, Bob and Robert) was a hard fought affair. Nip and tuck until Zen Calm led 12-8 and the clock running down in timed game. We got 3 in the next end. The coche thrown before the whistle took us into the final end. Anita and Shirley got the job done with Alan not needing his boules for a tense 13-12 victory.
The semi final saw us rematch with B’nees (we drew with them in our first game of the day). A much better game by Hecky as B’nees ran out of steam saw us to a reasonably comfortable 13-4 victory.
So to the gold final against the favourites (Romain, Ralph and Robert). Nip and tuck with the lead changing hands in early ends to a point where we were level at 8 points each. Some good play by our opponents saw them run out deserved 13-8 winners. Close but no cigar, but another excellent performance with all players performing well on the day.
Sorry Shirley, but we’re out to get you this morning in the Heckmondwike v Mirfield West Yorkshire League match. Fickle or what!!
Some notes from Alan Bate about our away trip to Wetherby…
Deja vu. Best thing about today was again the weather.
The triples were a little closer than the scores suggest, but with our first 2 pairs matches over quite quickly, it was left to Clive and Kath to save some honour.
They did this in style in a very hard bought game beating a very strong pair in Alan Swift and Sue.
The home team were strong all round and ran out deserved 4-1 winners overall.
A disappointing result against a good team that have won the league in the past two seasons!
Here’s to a much better result at home to Leeds next Wednesday.
(From Darren – We have taken 6 points from two away matches, even though they have been a bit skewed I still think they are great results overall! Well done to all players!)
This time Tony McDonald takes over as chief sports reporter for our first 2024 fixture…
A fantastic start to the season..
Our first game of the new 2024 league saw weather suitable for all four seasons of the year in one match.
We started to play in bright sunshine wearing only t-shirts and then turning bitterly cold with hail and wind. We all finished well wrapped up to keep the elements out.
All players turned up early after dodging their way through roadworks and bad traffic heading into Harrogate for the flower show.
GAME ONE (Triple Clive Kath and Roger)
Despite going down 4-0 in the first 2 ends, after getting the measure of the terrain they started to play.
The newly gravelled piste was always going to suit Clive’s lobbing and he played well throughout.
Roger was leading out and put in some great opening points putting pressure on the Harrogate side. They were well supported with Kath playing well as the middler in this talented trio.
They won the game 13-4!
GAME TWO (Triple Ian Tony and Alma)
All three players played well with Alma pointing to her usual high standard. Tony shooting well taking out a few crucial boules and Ian playing a couple of outstanding boules to bring the end back to Heckmondwike
They won 13-6 and that gave us a 2-0 lead in the match going into the pairs games…
GAME THREE (Double Clive and Kath)
Our husband and wife team Clive and Kath recorded a 13-2 victory. I didn’t see much of this game but Clive came off smiling so Kath must have played well.
GAME FOUR (Double Tony and Alma)
Tony and Alma complemented each others play with Alma once again pointing to a high level and Tony continuing to hit most of his shots. Both keeping pressure on the opposing side not letting them get into the game. Coming out worthy 13-2 winners.
GAME FIVE (Double Ian and Roger)
Ian and Roger had a much closer game, nip and tuck all way through seeing it level at 10 across. Both teams playing tight ends eventually our senior pair (in age) came good and had a great 13-10 win.
Conclusion
A fantastic start to the new season. A great team effort by all players making it difficult for the selection committee in choosing the next team to play Wetherby away in our match Tuesday 30th April at 10:30.
Also a big thankyou to Karen who came to support the team (she did travel with her boules just in case we required her services) , although she watched some games much of her afternoon was spent in the shops of Harrogate….
More once again from our man on the pistes, Alan Bate…
Firstly a big congratulations to Huddersfield Petanque Club for reaching their 10 year milestone! Here’s to many more!
Sadly, the best thing about Saturdays 10th Anniversary event as far as Heckmondwike success was concerned was the weather!
We entered the 3 separate competitions, Mixed Triples, Mixed Pairs, and Open Triples and fared as follows:
Mixed Triples:
Alma, Shirley, Ken Hutchinson and Roger Farrar shared the workload, but struggled to gain any momentum as a team in their 3 league games.
In the silver semi final they lost to Hollicars 2 then beat Rainworth in the Silver 3rd place play off. A good end to a disappointing day for the team.
Mixed Pairs:
Kath and Clive got off to a fine start beating Trafford 13-2. A tight second game resulted in a slightly questionable 11-12 loss to Hollicars 1. (a further end was not allowed despite the previous end being completed before the bell sounded) In their 3rd game our pair were in control, but a loss of 5 in one end contributed to another 1 point defeat (12-13) to Hollicars 2. In the Silver semi we lost to Ripponden before beating Hudderfield in the 3rd place play off.
Open Pairs:
This time Alan Bate and Kevin Hepworth representing the club with 3 wins in the league against Hollicars 1, Leeds and Hollicars 2 saw us progress to the Gold Semi final. The pick of the results was coming from behind (2-8 and 9-12) against Richard and Alan from Leeds.
The vagaries of Paul’s system saw us play against Leeds again in the semi. Leeds sought and achieved revenge! We then lost to Trafford in a long but very enjoyable 3rd place play off. At least we delayed the presentation ceremony that we did not partake in…
A long and enjoyable day with some lessons learned by yours truly!
Thanks to all who played and look out for more match reports from the first West Yorkshire League Fixture of 2024…
A wet and windy day at Trafford in the invitational.
Heckmondwike represented by Alan and Anita plus Clive and Graham.
Alan and Anita lost their first 3 games and yet were only minus 7 points.
Clive and Graham having more success winning their first 3 and that left Clive and Graham in the Gold semi finals with Alan and Anita in the Bronze semis.
Final results being 3rd place in Gold group for Clive and Graham with Anita and Alan winning the Bronze group.
Unfortunately only 3 of the Trans Pennine teams fielded representatives in today’s invitational, with good numbers from Trafford and Rochdale plus the Hecky 4.
A 5 game snake faced the 18 teams who entered the YP Triples at Hollicars on a typically wet Bank Holiday Easter Monday.
Only 1 team contained Heckmondwike members, The Heckythumps, aka Alan, Anita and Shirley.
A poor start losing 13 – 5 (to the eventual winners) followed by 4 excellent wins against decent teams saw us to a 4 win +12 total.
With Anita and Shirley sharing the pointing and making many excellent deliveries with Alan on good shooting form and adding points to ends where we were already lying shot.
We had to wait until completion of the very last game to see if Triple Mix could overtake us with their 4th win by a margin of 5 points. They managed to win 13-10 to leave Heckythump in a hard earned 3rd place and in the prize money.
Well done team. A great day had by all with the sun eventually making an appearance.
(Darren here… Well done team, any HPC related good news anyone wants reporting then please do let me know… Always happy to put it on the blog!)
Firstly those of you who did come to weed & feed please check your pockets, bags and tools as we have lost a set of keys for a car so please check if you have picked up a set of keys by mistake.
If you have please contact Tony or Karen McDonald as it’s for their car!
Those of you who didn’t attend don’t need to check for keys. You all must have been incredibly busy anyway 😉
Lots of important tasks undertaken by 20 of our members
Today our latest Weed and Feed took place.
A fantastic 21 members (well 20 and a little lad!) turned out to help prepare our facilities and complete a myriad of tasks.
Karen, Tony, Kath, Clive, Alan, Anita, Gordon, David, Bev, Christine, Ron, Eamon, Cath C, Pauline, Ian, Alma, Roger J, Roger F, Colin, Myself and top raker Edison made up today’s task force.
The tasks completed outside included replacing rotten timbers, scraping and removal of moss, restringing broken strings, clearing leaves, gardening on the new banking, removing of moss, grass and weeds from the terrains, redistribution of gravel and much more…
Inside a team were on with cleaning, sweeping, polishing and tidying of our storage areas.
Gordon was on hand, assisted by others to produce a fantastic round of bacon sandwiches enjoyed by all.
To beat the same drum I always do, none of the faces there today really surprised me, nor did many of the notable absences. Whatever your level of ability or fitness there is a job you can do next time.
The club, YOUR club, only functions because of days like this. It’s not a committee job, it’s not someone else’s job, it’s YOUR job to help keep the facilities in good order!
We hope to see even more faces at the next Weed & Feed event.
We will be holding the first Weed & Feed of 2024 on Tuesday 19th of March. For anyone who doesn’t know, the weed bit is a range of maintenance tasks to be done on the terrains and surrounding areas which will keep our facilities in good order for some of the year ahead.
The feed bit is one of our lovely members (usually Gordon!) making all the volunteers a fantastic bacon butty as a reward for all your hard work.
A key project for this year is adding shrubbery and foliage to the banking that Transformers North have helped us clear.
If anyone has any perennial plants, low maintenance stuff and would like to donate them to the club this is a great day to bring and plant them so we can get it looking great for the warmer weather.
If you would like to purchase a plant and bring it along that would also be much appreciated as we are spending the club money in other areas, such as adding new gravel to the terrains.
It starts at 9.30am and we need YOU. Yes YOU! If you haven’t been before then why not make this one your first time!
HUDDERSFIELD 10 YEAR CELEBRATION EVENT
Our friends at Huddersfield have reached their 10 year milestone in 2024 and are celebrating with a tournament and inviting local clubs to participate.
It is on 20th of April and if we are to enter we need a team of 7 to make up a mixed pair, an open pair and a triple.
If you would like to play then please register your interest with Tony or Darren McDonald and if we can get 7 together we will field a side and try our best. Reach out on WhatsApp, phone or down at the club this week.
Another very decent day of weather meant a bright and dry morning and our terrains looking in fantastic order when players arrived from the three other clubs. Today it was our turn to host and thanks to all those members who were there early to set up, sweep and rake.
The format was the same, 2 triples matches and 3 pairs games against each of the other clubs meaning 6 rounds of 50-minute timed games.
Today Bev, David, Alan (Barry White’s voice double,) Anita, Kath, Clive, Tony and Darren (me) all represented Hecky and tried our best to wrestle as many wins as we could.
Huddersfield
Triples
First up we played Huddersfield and Kath, Clive & I took on Brendan, Nell and Sue whilst David, Alan & Anita played Robin, Roy & Rita. Both of our sides got off to a flyer and quite quickly we won both matches. The Westley’s and I continued our good form from the alst round and a mix of good shooting from Clive, pointing from Kath and eyesight from me (I asked for a measure when we nearly gave up a point and the measure went in our favour) meant we played out a nice 13-2 win.
Over on the other terrain things didn’t take much longer with David and Anita pointing really well and Alan doing the shooting when called upon. They won 13-3 to give us two nice opening wins.
Doubles
The first match to finish in the doubles was Clive and I against Roy and Sue. Having won the toss and taken them on ‘Pebble Beach,’ where we’d had a sneaky practice together on Wednesday we very quickly lost two in the first end and wondered if we’d made the right decision. However some good lob pointing from both of us and more good shooting from Clive saw us run out 13-3 winners to secure us 3 points in total and enough to win the overall fixture.
Bev and Tony played Brendan and Nell and the Huddersfield pair showed much improved form from the first round. They were always in front and Bev and Dad both reported that they didn’t quite play their best which meant a 12-6 loss for Hecky as the clock ran out.
Anita and Alan’s game was much closer with it being 4-4, 5-5 at one point before our duo moved ahead 7-5 in their game with Robin and Rita. However some tidy pointing from Rita followed by a smart take out from Robin gave them a score of five on the penultimate end before the bell. A bit of bad timing and the bell ringing called for some aggressive shots from our team but they couldn’t find the one they need and went down 11-7.
Perhaps one that got away but the overall score of 3-2 was a good platform to build on through the day.
Rochdale
Triples
There was just time to get in the triples against Rochdale before the lunch break and this time Dad came in for Clive to Partner me and Kath against Dennis, Sam & Christine from Rochdale. I think the score might have flattered us a bit here with Sam both pointing and shooting well for Rochdale. However we always had the game under control and Dad put a couple of really good last boules in when we needed to prevent them from getting any big score and we won that game 11-2.
The other trio of Bev, David and Alan also had a nice win against the Rochdale Darren, Linda & Dave. I didn’t see any of the game as we went right to the buzzer but it was great to have plenty of Heckmondwike members supporting all our sides and keeping me informed of the score. They were always doing well and ran out 11-6 winners to give us a clean sweep of all four triples games in the morning, no mean feat given that we all moan when we’re in a triple in social play!
Over the course of the day we saw Nigel, Alma, Roger J, Roger F, Cath and chief supporter Shirley all on the sidelines cheering us on. Sorry if I didn’t mention anyone there. A special thank also to Pauline and Karen who cleaned, washed, swept, tidied and made drinks as well as supporting the team. We appreciate it.
Lunch
Over lunch we all enjoyed some cakes which David had baked all himself and then put into wrappers that looked like they were shop bought so no one would accuse him of being a show-off!
We also drew the raffle which raised a fantastic £150 for Transformers North over the 2 days of sales so Thanks to everyone for their support, buying tickets and bringing prizes. The prize table looked great.
Doubles
After lunch it was time for the doubles against Rochdale and me and Alan sat out this time to keep up the tradition of giving everyone 3 games out of the first 4. This has been very easy to do as everyone has played really well across all three days!
Bev and Anita were the first to finish and that was a fantastic win 13-7 against Dennis and Darren from Rochdale. It was a fairly even game in the early stages but our pairing really got it moving and at the final end they scored a great 5 to get over the line. This was a match where we didn’t have a player who likes to shoot so that made the result even better and gave them both 2 wins from their opening three matches. Well done!
Unfortunately, as in the morning games the other two doubles matches went against us. David and Tony were leading their game 11-6 but gave away a 3 and then a 4 to go down 13-11. A good effort and maybe one that got away.
Kath and Clive lost their match 13-6 with Kath reporting that Linda from Rochdale pointed extremely well and Clive reporting that he didn’t shoot much at all.
Again this meant a 3-2 win for Heckmondwike against Rochdale, a result we will always take to continue our unbeaten run.
Trafford
Triples
The final set of games of the day were against Trafford, our closet rivals in the league table and so we were hoping for a good win.
I went back to the triple of Kath, Clive and I and we got the job done well. If Clive didn’t hit much in the last game then he made up for it here as he didn’t miss anything at all. A fantastic shooting performance backed up by some good pointing from Kath and the odd one here and there from me meant we won that game 13-1.
Down the other end our team of Anita, Alan and Tony faced a really tough Trafford trio and the game was nip and tuck with Trafford going 6-3 up before we ground them down to level it up at 6-6. In the next end we engineered a great chance to get a big score with Alan’s first point not beaten or shot by any of the Trafford boules. That left us with 5 in hand and a fairly open coche. We managed to pick up 3 and that proved to be one short as in the next end, when the bell rang Trafford shot well to get themselves into a good position and score 3 to get a 9-9 draw.
I would have definitely taken a win and a draw before we started and it meant we went unbeaten in the triples all day, well done everyone!
Doubles
We finished with the doubles against Trafford and paired the Whittington’s together, Anita & Alan and Clive and myself.
Me and Clive played a strong team from Trafford who didn’t quite have their shooting boots on. Clive did (again) and I probably pointed my best game of the day to keep them on the back foot and we won 13-5.
That meant we had at least a tie against Trafford but with two more games to go could we get a win that would increase our lead over them in the league table.
The answer was a resounding yes! Neither couple quite reached 13 but they both played extremely well and managed the game well.
Anita and Alan won 12-8 against Neil and Sylvia and played great to get in front and maintain that gap. Sometimes in those timed games it is important to know when the clock is on your side and they worked well together to secure another good win.
Bev and David completed the treble of doubles wins with a great 11-7 result. It was a closer game, which was tied at 7-7, until Bev and Dave found a great 4 to lead 11-7 going into the final end. Trafford couldn’t really improve on our team’s boules in the final end and they just shook hands and we took the win 11-7.
Put all that together and that meant a brilliant 4.5-0.5 result against Trafford!
Finally…
So three more wins (to go with out 5 wins and a draw from the previous two days) and that leaves us with a quite fantastic 31 wins out of 45 points.
Less showboating Darren, Concentrate on the game…
We are 9 wins to the good over our closest league rivals Trafford and in a strong position going into the final day of games at Rochdale on 17th of March. Lets hope we can continue our great run and win the first Pennine League trophy. On top of that, everyone had played great again, everyone scored at least 1.5 points and we all enjoyed the day!
One last note, we already know that Kath, Clive and me can’t make the Rochdale day so please do put your name down to play if you are willing and able to do so. The team sheet will be up next week, it’s only 40 minutes or so to Rochdale and there is going to be some food and a presentation after the last match!
Heckmondwike Petanque Club 