The Club is born!

On Sunday 12th August 2006, the 1st ever championship of the Ballarat Petanque Club was held on the brand new Piste behind the Alfredton Sports and Community Club.

Due to the huge numbers of registrations and new Club members (over 50 members signed up), only the Doubles Championship could be staged over the course of the day. The singles championship had to be postphoned to another day. But every game had the crowd on the edge of their cement standing.

The very 1st heat was won by Darryl and Meredith Beseler who will now go down in history as the 1st team to not only throw their boulles down on the Ballarat Petanque Club piste - but also win the 1st heat of the 1st doubles championship. 

But the most exciting game was the Grand Final between the ex BPC President - Jamie Gepp - (who returned to the Ballarat Petanque Club for the 1st time in 3 years!) partnering his garden knome mate - Matt Isley - up against the young gun, Jamie Gardner and his mate Brenton Simpson.

While the active sledging of Gepp (is there any etique in Petanque?) was obviously a pre-championship tactic developed by the Garden Knomes team, and early on it appeared to be working for them - winning their way through the heats and semi-finals then to the Grand Final.

Then in the Grand Final, the Garden Knomes shot away early up and seemingly were walking away with the illustrious 'Beige Jacket'.

Jamie Gardner then stepped up to Rossy's Piste for his last 'shoot'. The sun was setting over the Alfredton Sports Club, the piste was in picture perfect condition after another perfect sweep over by Pete's highly sophisticated, technologically enginneered tractor.

 A huge crowd circled the entire perimeter of the playing area. The scene was set for Gard's final 'shoot'.

After 5 minutes of crowd encouragement, screaming, barracking and general babble of over-intoxicated Club members, a sudden hush of silence fell over Alfredton. It was deadly silent.

Can young Jamie do it? It seemed an impossibility. The Garden Knomes' boulles were within millemetres of the kitty. Some were heard whispering - "can't be done".

Jamie Gardner then flicked his experienced petanque wrist ....

....the boulle sailed smoothly several metres upwards - into the Alfredton twighlight...

..... the crowd watched in anticipation as it then began its descent toward the kitty - which was surrounded by the Knome's boulles.

Down, down it sailed.

Then - splat!! It landed flush up against the kitty - between the Knome's boulles!

The crowd erupted! It was pandononium in Alfredton! Jamie Gardner and Brenton Simpson had won the 1st Doubles Championship of the Ballarat Petanque Club!  They were now embedded into history - in the year 2157 they will be stll talking about the 1st Club Championships held in 2007.

The beige jacket was quickly thrown onto the wiining team and the celebrations started.

What a game. What a championship. What a day!

Hopefully we will soon track down some photographs of the Championship and post them on this website for all to see.

In the meantime, polish up your boulles.

Come the 1st week of summer, the singles championships will begin, as well as the first heats of the 2008 Doubles Championship.      

To register your team (both singles and doubles) email to the Ballarat Petanque Club Secretary - Matt James on

MatthewJames@riversaustralia.com.au