Annual open a boost for petanque profile

BOULES players from Melbourne and regional Victoria took to the pistes at the Ballarat East Bowling Club over the weekend as part of the Ballarat Petanque Club’s third annual open triples competition.

Thirty-one teams took part in the event and president Don Collins said it was a friendly sociable tournament for everyone involved.

“It’s always a friendly sport and most people generally know each other,” he said. “No one’s playing for a sheep station. It’s played in good humour and people appreciate when someone throws a good boule.

“For us this is probably one of our higher numberers events. Our player rankings have gone up and people now know there are no easy games against Ballarat.

“The last three times in the regional tournament our team’s come third. I think that helps with the profile of the club and why people are prepared to come along to this.”

The Ballarat Petanque Club was established in early 2020 as the 52nd petanque club in Australia, and the group has since grown to more than 60 members.

With their facilities increasing with extra seating and soon three marquees paid for by the City of Ballarat’s Growing Communities fund, Collins said the club is poised to continue growing the sport.

“We’ve got some more membership applications coming in and I’m about to run a class for the summer school for the University of the Third Age in January,” he said.

“I know I’ve already got more than 10 people ready to sign up and expect most would join up afterwards.

“You can’t undervalue the community benefit of what we do. It gets people out of their homes. You can play three times a week, it doesn’t matter, but you socialise and learn new skills.”